The Fire before Winter
by Kryptaria
Summary: In 1945, the Trinity nuclear test at White Sands ripped a hole in reality. The world was forever changed as mythology, magic, and legend became scientific fact. Sixty-five years later, the soldiers of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers are forced into early retirement. A chance meeting with Sherlock, forensic alchemist, puts John on the trail of the most feared creature on earth.
1. Chapter 1

**Wednesday, 27 January**

"And in weather this morning, today's rain continues through tonight and tomorrow, all the way to Friday, but we have hope that the weekend might bring us some unseasonable sunshine. Expect above zero temperatures with a high of seven today, but bundle up. Evening lows are expected to drop to four below in outlying areas."

The weather map of southwest England shifted to show a lunar schedule for the next five days. Captain John Watson pressed the down arrow on the bed control, reclining the pillows a bit more. His neck ached from watching the wall-mounted telly, but there wasn't anything else to do. He'd only brought two paperbacks with him, and he'd loaned them both out days ago. The hospital heater kicked in, stirring the privacy drapes to either side of the bed.

"Due to the convergence of a high-magic current crossing down from the arctic and the full moon on the thirtieth, we're looking at a WS-index as high as the upper seventies. Anyone planning light-oriented spellwork is advised to remain indoors behind proper shielding, especially at the height of the convergence, predicted for seventeen past seven on the morning of the thirtieth."

The weather announcer, a pretty human woman, reappeared on the screen, with a full moon superimposed over her right shoulder. A silhouette of a howling wolf head obscured part of the moon.

"As a reminder, this month's full moon will be thirty percent brighter and will appear fourteen percent larger than any other full moon for the next twelve months. For more information on the 'wolf moon', as well as the Lunar Effect Research Team's work on the effects of lunar radiation on existing magical artefacts, please visit our website at BBC dot co dot uk slash magic. For BBC Weather, this is Eileen Sykes. Now back to you, Pete."

With impeccable timing, a chipper nurse momentarily blocked the view, interrupting the latest sport scores. "How are we doing?" she asked, holding a tablet PC annoyingly out of his line-of-sight.

Trying not to let irritation creep into his voice, John quashed the instinctive demand to see his test results straight away. If he was going to successfully integrate back into civilian life, he had to break military habits. So he smiled and told her, "Just fine, thanks."

The nurse gave him a sympathetic, slightly patronising nod, as if she could possibly understand just how aggravating his life had become in the three months since his regiment had returned to London. "You're doing very well, Captain. Just a few more tests and you'll be all finished." She tapped the tablet, barely glancing at the bedside monitoring equipment as she input his vitals. Her smile became a touch less professional as she added, "We'll be sorry to see you go."

John knew his next blood draw wasn't for another forty-five minutes, so he nodded at the tablet, asking, "Mind if I take a look?" When she hesitated, he gave her his most harmless, charming smile and said, "Professional interest and all."

"Hospital regulations —"

"Actually, I did my residency here," he interrupted smoothly, silently wishing that all the ridiculous legends were true. His life would be a hell of a lot easier if he could mesmerise with a single look.

Her eyes lit up with curiosity. "Your residency? You were a doctor?"

"I still am," he lied. Well, it wasn't technically a lie. The government couldn't take away his academic and professional accomplishments — just his right to actually put them to good use. "May I?"

"Well... for just a moment," she said, giving him a conspiratorial, flirty smirk as she passed him the tablet. She folded her arms, watching him as he confidently started tabbing through the information. Once satisfied he wasn't going to do any damage, she turned her attention to the telly, leaning against the side of the bed.

His licence to practice civilian medicine was under review, though not through any misconduct on his part. The status of his whole regiment was 'under review' as the government scrambled to figure out precisely how to integrate more than seven hundred former soldiers into civilian life, given that they were no longer entirely human.

The technical term was enhanced vampiric soldier, or EVS. The men and women of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers were still alive, mostly. They just had been transplanted with additional organs taken from vampires — under what circumstances, John had no idea — that enabled their bodies to extract life energy from ingested animal or human blood, giving them enhanced strength, speed, sensory acuity, and regeneration while leaving them able to walk in sunlight and immune to bloodlust.

It should have been an ideal solution: the perfect soldiers to end war.

Of course, the whole concept was a public relations disaster that had been inevitable, at least in hindsight. The soldiers of the Fifth had ended a war that had blazed in that region of the world on and off for hundreds of years, but the way that feat had been accomplished had been censured by half the nations of the world — most likely out of the fear that the Fifth would come for them next.

So now they were back in London, condemned as experimental freaks rather than hailed as heroes, forbidden to practice the profession of warfare to which they had all dedicated their lives. And only now were the politicians and generals and special interest groups all fighting over what was to be done with them. Should the soldiers of the Fifth be retired with honours, given the pensions and medical care they'd been promised? Or should they be eliminated, hidden from history as a national embarrassment? Already, high-ranking military officials had resigned and political careers had ended over the question of what to do with seven hundred unwanted enhanced vampiric soldiers.

John tried to look at the whole situation stoically, but it was damned hard to stay level-headed when polls showed almost thirty percent of Londoners thought the 'monsters' of the Fifth should be locked away in the maximum security hazardous creature facility if not killed outright. The most merciful, misguided people thought they should be euthanised out of respect for their former human selves, regardless of the fact that the soldiers of the Fifth were neither dead nor undead.

Fortunately, while any schoolchild could list the four primary characteristics of a true vampire (fangs, ashen complexion, black irises, and adverse reaction to silver), the enhanced soldiers of the Fifth shared none of those traits. The closest they came, in fact, was Bill Murray's allergy to cheap silver jewellery with a high nickel content. Once they were discharged, they could disappear into civilian life with no one the wiser.

According to the tablet, John's latest lab results were all well within the hastily drawn guidelines. He was processing orally administered animal blood well above the eighty percent threshold required to sustain his transplanted Hevet-Prannoy system. He let out a relieved sigh and skimmed the rest of the blood analysis before he returned to the main menu and tapped the tablet against her arm. "Thanks, love," he told her, offering the warm, charming smile that had served him so well since he'd first discovered sex back in his pre-uni days.

A tint of color came to her cheeks as she took the tablet. "I'll be back for your next test in a little bit."

"Can't wait," he flirted back shamelessly, and watched her walk away. When she was on the other side of the curtain separating his bed from the others, he leaned back against his pillow and looked up at the telly, hiding his sigh.

If he was lucky, he'd be done with the tests today, and could spend the night in the barracks rather than the secure ward at Bart's, which had been given over to the regiment's outprocessing, supposedly for their own safety. Just a little while longer, he told himself, and went back to watching telly as he waited for the nurse to come back around and pick up the tablet.

* * *

Four hours later, John walked down the hall, relieved to be back in civilian clothes. He tried to force his new ration card into his wallet, but the lamination, still warm from the machine, was about a millimetre too wide to fit. It didn't help that he had a thick manila envelope jammed under his right arm, full of unnecessary printouts of instructions, regulations, legal and medical warnings, support groups, and helplines. As if he hadn't known how to manage his 'condition', as they delicately called it, for the last three years?

Out of nowhere, a shadow passed in front of him. He jumped back with unnatural speed, envelope and wallet flying, heart pounding hard against his ribs in preparation for combat before he registered the details of his surroundings. He'd almost bumped into a human man, the embodiment of tall, dark, and dangerously handsome — what John was supposed to look like, in fact, if one were to believe the legends.

"Sorry," John apologised as he bent down to retrieve everything he'd dropped. He went for his new wallet card first; if he lost it after not even fifteen minutes, he'd get dragged before some sort of inquest, he was certain.

The tall man swept down almost as quickly, his fingers closing over John's as he, too, went for the card. Under the glossy lamination, the card was printed in brown ink with a glittering hologram stamp under the text, beside John's unflattering photo. The back held a magnetic strip with John's ID number and aura specifications, as well as an imprint of his right thumb.

"Thanks, but I've —"

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" the man asked, his voice insinuating itself into John's consciousness, stroking along his nerves like a physical touch. The actual words of the question, at first, didn't even register. John's enhanced senses, so useful in combat, scrambled like a jammed comm signal under that gorgeous voice, momentarily overwhelmed.

Time skipped and stuttered until John's mind finally broke free of his body's instincts. In those few seconds he'd spent staring, studying the man's striking bone structure and eyes that were so pale blue as to almost be silver, the man had picked up both the envelope and John's wallet.

"Afghanistan," John managed to say, as soon as his voice decided to cooperate. "How —"

The man looked down, scanning John's wallet, lashes dark against his very pale skin. "You're with the Fifth. Your ID lists your address as the Hyde Park Barracks, but you have a retiree's ration card. Field medic. An officer, too."

"What?" John asked dumbly. This didn't feel like pro-human bigotry, but something less emotional, more focused. The man's intense stare made John feel like a caged lab rat, despite how unusually gorgeous his eyes were.

"Officer's quarters, reserved for active-duty soldiers. You have four weeks to find new housing?" he asked, offering John the wallet.

John took it automatically, folding it around the ration card. He shoved the wallet in the pocket of his jeans. "Two."

The man's lips curved up, changing the shape of his mouth from interesting to captivating. When he smiled, his lips didn't go thin and tight at all, but stayed soft and supple and inviting. "A new profession, too, I suppose. As a trained physician, there's probably work in the morgue while the government sorts out your licence."

He rose, towering over John, and held out the envelope. Feeling like he'd been struck in the head with a board, John got back to his feet and took the envelope. "What?"

Without answering, the man started away, long legs taking him quickly down the hallway.

After a moment, John jogged after him. "Hold on!"

He stopped abruptly and pivoted gracefully on one heel, long coat swirling around his legs. "Problem?"

"Who — Who are you?"

His lips curved up in a smirk. "Sherlock Holmes," he said, and resumed his walk down the hall.

John closed his eyes and rubbed his free hand against the back of his neck, trying to ease away the tension that had settled there. Then he looked around and spotted a courtesy phone not too far away. He walked over to it more slowly and picked it up, telling the operator, "Dr. Mike Stamford, please. This is Dr. John Watson."

After two rings, Stamford's familiar, cheerful voice answered, "John! What on earth are you doing, calling me on an inside line? Did we offer you enough money to lure you out of the army, then?"

"Well, no. Not yet, anyway," John said, trying not to flinch. He still had no idea what he'd be able to do for a living, once he was formally discharged from service. "I think you've got an escaped psych patient."

"Again? I swear, the magic dampers can't keep up with the full moon energy surge, but does anyone listen to me?" He sighed. "You don't have a name, do you?"

"It's a strange one. Sherlock Holmes."

To John's surprise, Mike burst out laughing. "Oh! You must be downstairs, by the morgue?"

Surprised, John said, "Well, yes."

"Yeah, he's always either up here, bothering me about using the lab, or down in the morgue. I think he's got a thing for our forensic deathspeaker, Dr. Hooper. Molly. Do you know her?"

"No," John said, feeling a twinge of disappointment. Sherlock hadn't precisely been flirting with him, but John had allowed himself to imagine some small measure of interest. "So, who is he?"

"Researcher, alchemist, and colossal pain in the arse. Why do you ask?"

"Oh. I, ah, bumped into him. Literally," John said, suddenly reluctant to discuss the matter with Mike. "I just wanted to make certain he's safe out in the general population."

Mike laughed warmly again. "You've got to be kidding, mate. Sherlock Holmes, safe? Not on your life."


	2. Chapter 2

**Wednesday, 4 February**

Rain shivered over John's skin as he ran, feet pounding into puddles, gravel catching in the thin treads of his trainers. Muscle memory was still compensating for the expected weight of combat boots, and he grinned at the contrast, feeling lighter and freer than he had in ages. The key to his lousy little bedsit was tucked safely away in an inside pocket of his tracksuit bottoms, he was soaked through his jacket to the T-shirt below, and his whole life — however long that would be — was stretched before him.

Because of the rain, he'd left his new-used mobile back at the bedsit. It was a backhanded gift from his sister, pointedly reminding him that she felt the divorce was his fault. He'd been tempted to mail it back to her with a little note that blood only went so far, but it was an expensive gadget that could store his whole music library with room to spare. Today, though, he ran with the sound of nothing more than his breathing to fill his ears, so he clearly heard the bright, high sound of feminine laughter when it rang out somewhere ahead to the right.

Curiosity had always been his weakness, so when he reached the fork in the path, he turned right instead of taking his planned route to the left and then home. A part of his mind tried to accommodate the shift so he wouldn't have to backtrack, but his mental map of the park was sketchy at best. Had this been a op, he would've memorised every street, path, and alley for a half mile in any direction, but this was a simple rainy morning jog.

The path twisted around a hedge before the space ahead opened up onto a rain-splattered pond surrounded by muddy, winter-brown grass. John's steps faltered as he realised that the feminine laughter had come from a clump of tall, decorative water weeds, and he was tempted to retrace his steps to give the woman — who presumably wasn't alone — some privacy. Still, if she'd wanted real privacy, there were thick copses of trees and perfectly good hotels not far off, so he kept jogging.

As he drew closer, he couldn't help but glance at the weeds. He heard a low, male voice speaking, followed by another charming laugh. John hardly noticed when his steps slowed to a trot and then a walk as his gaze locked to the weeds.

Then he glimpsed her lying low to the ground, propped up on her elbows. White hair like mist framed a perfect face, green skin making her huge teal eyes seem to glow like gemstones. Her graceful hands cupped her narrow, pointed chin, fingers stretched to show delicate webbing. She was the most beautiful creature John had ever seen, though as he started walking towards her, some small voice in the back of his mind screamed in warning, barely heard over the lyrical sound of her laughter.

It took an act of will to break the spell of her allure, but John had some practice at that. Enough years of fighting the djinn and their illusions taught a man to never trust his eyes. After a long blink, he forced his mind to see through her aura to the scales and sharp, flesh-rending teeth hidden from normal sight. He had no idea how London classified nixies on the hazardous creatures scale, but this particular one looked about two minutes away from claiming a victim.

The victim in question was crouched at the edge of the water, a dark shadow hidden between the reeds. Judging by size, the victim was an adult, but that was all John could tell — not that it mattered. He pushed into a run, holding back none of his speed, blood and power flushing through his limbs as he covered the intervening twenty yards in seconds.

Startled, the nixie screeched, assaulting John's sensitive ears with a stunning sonic blast. He faltered but hit his target anyway, catching the nixie's victim around the torso. They both went down under John's weight, but he twisted and shoved the nixie's victim away from the edge of the water, out of her reach.

"What the _hell?_" shouted a familiar baritone, no longer an intimate caress but a sharp slap.

John ignored it long enough to look towards the lake and verify that the nixie had made her escape, disappearing below the surface of the water. Then he pushed up on all fours, sunk in mud up to the wrists, and looked at the muddy, bedraggled man he'd saved.

"Did you fail primary school or something? What on earth possessed you to chat up a nixie? Or do you have a fetish for drowning?" he demanded, trying to find a clean spot on his arm to wipe the rain and splattered mud out of his eyes, since his hands were filthy. Fortunately, one sleeve had survived the messy tackle.

"I wasn't _in_ the water!" Sherlock Holmes protested. Soaked and dirty, he no longer looked like some pale Byronic ideal of a vampire; he put John more in mind of a half-drowned cat. "I took care of a kelpie that tried to take over her pond last autumn. She owes me a favour."

"I thought Mike said you _weren't_ an escaped psych patient," he accused.

For one moment, Sherlock stared incredulously at him, silver-blue eyes full of suppressed rage. Then he drew in a breath and his eyes took on some other light, something joyful and dangerous and incredibly compelling.

"And you're an EVS," Sherlock said, lips slowly curving up in a smile. "You're not wholly alive."

The words hit like a punch to the solar plexus. Bristling with hostility, John growled, "Right. You're welcome," and started to get to his feet.

Sherlock caught him by one wrist, fingers squelching with mud. "No! No, that's good. Your heart's still beating, but we can work around that."

John crouched, muscles tensed against the long, wet fingers that fully circled his wrist. "Oh?" he asked in that calm, light tone of voice that his soldiers had learned to fear.

Not being one of the Fifth, Sherlock had no idea of the risk he was taking by continuing to speak. Instead, he smiled as if happy with John's response. "A week, ten days without food and water at most, and your human systems switch over. Don't they?"

How the _hell_ did he know that? Habit alone kept John breathing and steady as his mind raced. Some of the details of the EVS program had leaked to the public, though not all the leaks were accurate. Transition from life to undeath, however, was still their greatest secret. As far as the public was concerned, an EVS was more human than vampire, requiring all the same things unenhanced humans did: food, water, air, and sleep. The moment anyone learned that they could survive on blood alone, they'd be reviled as monsters even more than full vampires were. The soldiers of the Fifth needed to be completely, safely, legally integrated into society before that secret got out among the general public.

"Whatever you want —"

"This is good, actually. Very good," Sherlock interrupted, waving a hand back towards the nixie's pond. "You're more useful than she could have been. She was a last-ditch scout — going on the assumption that the tunnels even had something more than ankle-deep water. You, though..." Pale blue eyes raked over John with an intensity that made him shiver. "You've got potential."

"Potential for _what?_" John demanded.

"You're undead. Or you _can_ be undead, technically. You can walk right past its defences against the living. The nixie would probably get fried, even if the cache is entirely underwater." Sherlock rose, looking down at himself with an expression of disgust that bordered on horror as he regarded the way his muddy trousers clung wetly to his legs. "Look what you've done!"

"What _I've_ done?" John demanded. He rose and managed to ignore the temptation to equalise the six-inch different in their heights by kicking Sherlock under one kneecap, much as he deserved it. "I saved your bloody life, you idiot!"

"You ruined my suit," Sherlock accused. "Granted you _thought_ you were saving my life. You were incorrect, but it was the best assumption you could make, given the obvious facts at hand — and the mud's nothing but an improvement for your tracksuit. What possessed you to think grey would be at all flattering?"

John looked down at himself, caught up for one moment in Sherlock's apparent madness. The tracksuit was old and worn, military issue, and he saw no reason to replace it with something horrible and designer.

Then he shook his head, blinking rain out of his eyes, and glared up at Sherlock. "Just how many times a day do people try to punch you, anyway?"

Sherlock's mad grin appeared. "It has happened on occasion, though I'm no novice at self-defence."

"That's not an answer."

"You're still technically military, aren't you?"

"That wouldn't stop me from actually punching you," John threatened.

"Fine. I'll deal with that as well. We'll meet back here at dawn on..." Sherlock looked at his wrist and smeared the mud off a watch. It was one of the expensive ones that tracked lunar cycles as well as time. "Ah, perfect. Sunday the fourteenth. The fourteenth is moon-dark."

"I'm not —"

"You need to be undead by then, of course," Sherlock said, tugging down his wet sleeve. He pulled his long coat closed, covering the worst damage to his suit, and smirked at John. "Don't eat anything — including people."

* * *

The world of Mycroft Holmes was one of alerts, both subtle and overt. Gentle chimes signalled upcoming appointments. A faint buzz notified him of incoming emails. Anyone of government importance on four continents (five, if one counted the Deep Ice Research Team on Antarctica) had a customised ringtone, many of which were immediately recognisable to anyone on his immediate team.

The particular ringtone that interrupted the midday security briefing caused Mycroft's Washington DC representative to fall silent with an audible snap of his mouth. Everyone in the room collectively cringed. Mycroft just hid his reaction better than most.

"Pardon me," he said, and rose from the desk. He gave a little nod to his second-in-command, who took the reins of the briefing while Mycroft excused himself from the room.

In the hall, he answered his mobile with a very calm, "Dear brother."

"You're welcome," Sherlock answered.

Mycroft closed his eyes. "Dare I ask 'for what?'"

"Oh, I'm so sorry. Did you _authorise_ a lich to move to London? I thought we were keeping all those nasty things out of the country. Never mind, then. Clearly not important —"

"Sherlock!" Mycroft tensed, realising he was on the verge of shouting at his brother while in the hallway. He went into the nearest office and snapped, "Privacy," at the worker who stared up from behind a desk. In seconds, the office was clear, door closed, leaving Mycroft alone.

Mycroft took the still-warm, uncomfortable seat behind the desk. A glance showed him financial paperwork — accounts payable, to be precise. When he was calm, he spoke to Sherlock once more: "There are no liches in London, Sherlock. Are you confusing an undead, extremely powerful wizard in possession of impossible artefacts of unimaginable power with the EVS you encountered at St. Bartholomew's?"

"Are you really so bored that you need to watch security camera footage of me leaving the morgue?"

"Sherlock, to be a lich requires Trinity Glass, which has been banned from the nation for nearly sixty years. Liches are an _American_ issue."

"Then you can set the Border Agency on him. Meanwhile, we'll let him slaughter half of London for his experiments. That's what liches do for fun, isn't it? Kill people? How long does deportation take these days?"

"You really think you've found a lich," Mycroft said slowly, wondering if his brother was back on drugs. His little alchemy hobby put him in contact with far too many mind-altering compounds than Mycroft liked, but there was nothing technically illegal about most of them. "You're _certain_ you've found a lich?"

"Are you going to help me or would you like me to send it along to Buckingham Palace?"

"Are you telling the truth?"

"I know where its phylactery is. Once we have that, we'll have the lich. I need you to get me a soldier."

Sherlock was serious. A lump of ice settled in Mycroft's gut. One lich had made it to the British Isles before the Trinity Glass ban. Three hundred and twenty-two people had died and a Seelie sacred circle had been destroyed before the SAS had sent two of its draconic officers to take it down. One of the dragons had died; the other never flew again.

The list of military dragons was slim, but Sherlock had said 'soldier', not 'dragon'. Cautiously, Mycroft said, "I have many."

"One in particular — an EVS."

Irritation cut through Mycroft's racing thoughts. If Sherlock was correct — and he spent much of his time regrettably, insufferably correct — then they had a lich to deal with. Sherlock's little hobbies were meaningless by comparison. "Is this for your alchemical experimentation? The enhanced vampiric soldiers have full rights to live without —"

"It's to get the phylactery," Sherlock interrupted. "The lich's cache has defences meant to only keep out the living, not the undead."

"And you want _one_ EVS? Not an entire squad of them? Or the whole regiment?"

"Stop wasting my time, Mycroft. If you used your brain for something useful instead of politics, you'd understand. Get me my EVS."

Mycroft sighed and rested his elbows on top of a stack of receipts for office supplies. "Fine. I presume you've already decided which one you'd like for this mission?"

"Captain John Watson."

* * *

John's muddy clothes lay in a congealing heap on the bathroom floor, but he couldn't be arsed to care. His morning run had given the water heater, always taxed first thing in the morning, time to refill and reheat, and he took advantage of the empty building to claim the shower for fifteen blissful, steaming minutes. A hot shower, he'd learned, could cure nearly anything, up to and including a muddy encounter with a mad, suicidal alchemist.

It was too bad the man was bloody gorgeous, but John knew better than to involve himself with anyone even half as mad as Sherlock Holmes apparently was, no matter the potential benefits. He decided that if he saw Sherlock doing something foolishly suicidal again, he should just turn and walk the other way, though John knew himself better than that. He wouldn't leave anyone — well, _almost_ anyone — to die to a nixie, for one thing. So he'd save Sherlock's life, possibly indulge in a solid punch in the jaw, and _then_ go the other way.

When John was finally finished, he wrapped a towel around his hips, gathered his disgusting clothes inside another towel, and emerged from the communal bathroom in a cloud of steam. He went down the hallway in a rush, hearing the front door open, but cold air caught him as he unlocked his door. He looked over, prepared to yell at his neighbour to close the bloody door, before realising the woman who entered was no resident.

Whoever she was, she was gorgeous, the type of woman John wouldn't have hesitated to chat up in a bar during his pre-surgery army days. Even now, he might have given it a shot, had he been wearing more than a towel.

So he just gave a brief smile, pushed open his door, and stepped into his bland beige bedsit, wishing he'd at least been wearing trousers. He turned to close the door as he heard the click-click of her high heels. None of his closest neighbours were home at this hour, which meant she was following him. Perhaps she didn't mind the lack of trousers.

Encouraged, he looked back out into the hallway as she stepped into view. He'd never had any difficulty at all with chatting up people in strange circumstances. Really, standing in his doorway in only a towel with an armload of muddy clothes was far from the strangest.

So he smiled and said, "Good morning."

"Captain Watson?" she asked pleasantly. Her eyes never dropped to either his very noticeable surgical scars or lower. He didn't know if he should be flattered or insulted.

"Yes. Ah, caught me at a bad time," he lied, wondering if she was too proper for him to invite her in for tea. The neighbourhood was distinctly lacking in decent coffee shops.

"I'm afraid the matter is quite important. Would you like to get dressed first?"

"First?"

In answer, she removed a slim leather warrant from the pocket of her black coat. Inside was an official-looking Home Office identity card bearing her photograph, no name, and an ID number.

Technically, John was still active duty until the end of the month. He was also technically on leave, but he wasn't about to tell the Home Office to bugger off. So he nodded, pushed all thoughts of flirtation out of his mind, and said, "Right. Let me get my trousers."


	3. Chapter 3

**Wednesday, 4 February**

"Echo Two in place."

"Echo Two, roger. Echo Three?"

"Echo Three in place."

"Roger, Echo Three. We are green, sir."

Mycroft nodded and said, "Silent mode, gentlemen." Then he removed the earpiece that connected him to his team, turned it off, and slipped it into an outside pocket of his jacket.

The problem with working for the government was that occasionally, one's own rules got in the way. Mycroft had drawn up the security protocols for meeting with humans, demi-humans, and non-humans classified hazardous and above. Technically, an EVS fell into the 'lethal' category, which had caused no end of complications regarding the social reintegration of the soldiers of the Fifth.

Through a campaign of misinformation, supposed-exposés of classified files, and veterans' rights group protests, the soldiers were too visible to be conveniently eliminated — as some politicians had desired. The public had forced the passage of a bill acknowledging the rights of an EVS to be the same as any veteran, including the right to residency, pension, healthcare, and freedom.

Because of the typical government muddle of laws versus departmental regulations, an EVS was permitted to freely walk the streets of London, and yet a government official was required to take high-level security precautions when meeting with one. Thus, Mycroft had the required minimum of three snipers with pyro-rounds loaded and chambered, even though he suspected he was in no danger. Despite being an EVS, Watson remained a doctor first and a soldier second.

The cold, wet air inside the abandoned warehouse was filled with the refuse of industry, sitting like a thick coat of rust on Mycroft's tongue. The open roll-up door admitted outside air that was no fresher, only different, adding motor oil and petrol to the mix. He resisted the urge to sigh and remained standing, calm and composed, as a black sedan drove into view. Finally.

Unseen on the shadowy catwalks overhead, three snipers took aim at the rear passenger-side door of the sedan that braked twenty feet away from where Mycroft stood. The car's security guard exited first, giving Mycroft a brief nod as he turned and opened the back door.

_Captain John Watson, Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, retired,_ Mycroft thought. Among the first group to volunteer for the EVS surgery — number eleven, in fact, to actually receive the organ transplants, chosen both for his military record and for his medical training. Wisely, the scientists had thought it would be useful to have a trained physician available to tend the soldiers in the field in case anything went wrong, and he ended up being the first of five with medical training in his regiment.

Mycroft had seen his photograph, of course: a tanned, slightly weathered face, with deep blue eyes and gold-blond hair shaved close to his skull. The photograph was standard military, expressionless and impersonal. Compared to most file photos Mycroft had seen, Captain Watson looked fairly tame — in direct contrast to what his classified records stated. Captain Watson was no back-line surgeon. He'd joined the military as an infantry officer, not a member of the Royal Army Medical and Apothecary Corps.

The man who emerged from the car, however, seemed at first glance to be someone else entirely. Blue jeans, a black and white striped jumper, and inch of hair did a great deal to change his appearance. He took a moment to regard his surroundings — though surely he'd been paying attention in the car — and then started calmly towards Mycroft, his trainers nearly soundless.

The fact that he walked at human speed was not lost on Mycroft.

"Captain Watson," Mycroft said, remaining perfectly still, umbrella balanced on its point, curved handle fitted to his palm.

Watson stopped eight feet away. His hands rested comfortably at his sides, though his shoulders were squared, his back perfectly straight. He met Mycroft's eyes steadily for four seconds — two seconds longer than Mycroft had predicted, based on his assessment of most military types — before he raised a brow and prompted, "This is where you either introduce yourself or show me some identification."

The calm, matter-of-fact statement startled Mycroft. He skipped ahead, abandoning several useless steps in the conversation he'd planned, and instead said, "I understand you met with Sherlock Holmes earlier today."

Surprise turned quickly to anger, hidden in all but the subtlest narrowing of his eyes. His left hand twitched more than his right, fingers pressing close to his thigh, where he would have carried a sidearm.

Then he tipped his head fractionally to the side and asked, "Was there a question there?"

Unaccustomed to being caught wrong-footed, especially by a man who was essentially nothing more than a laboratory experiment, Mycroft blinked. Only one person in the warehouse had any chance of actually noticing that John had momentarily surprised him, and she was still in the back seat of the sedan.

"Very well, Captain. What is your business with Sherlock Holmes?"

"I don't have any. Who are you?"

"A concerned member of Her Majesty's government."

"I'd like to see your identification."

This time, Mycroft couldn't immediately stop his brows from rising. "Surely you made the same request of my assistant."

"And now I'm making it of you."

Unless dealing with his superiors (or those whom he wanted to think were in that category), Mycroft didn't introduce himself. He didn't give his name to anyone. He certainly didn't show his identification to anyone of lesser rank than the guards at Buckingham Palace or Downing Street. And he had absolutely no reason to give so much as a nod of recognition to an experimental soldier.

But something about Captain Watson still had him baffled. He couldn't trust his instincts because they were urging him to treat Captain John Watson as both a deadly predator and, conflictingly... well, the only word that came to mind was _adorable_. And that was a thought Mycroft would not permit himself to entertain under any circumstance.

He smiled charmingly, and for the first time in at least five years, the charm in his smile wasn't wholly faked. "I act as an interagency liaison and advisor," he explained, reaching into the left breast pocket of his jacket for one of his many identification cards. He noted the way John didn't follow the motion with his eyes, but instead kept his gaze locked to Mycroft's. At first glance, most soldiers considered Mycroft to be nothing more than a cog in the government, seeing no threat in him at all. What did John sense about Mycroft that others usually dismissed?

Even more curious now, Mycroft held out the ID. Obligingly, Watson came forward, stopping a few feet away, though tests of EVS eyesight implied that Watson could have read the print at ten feet or more. Dark blue eyes flicked down, first taking in the picture, and then back up to compare the photograph to reality. Then they dropped again, and went wide.

"Holmes?" His chin came up, and for the first time, it was Watson who was wrong-footed.

"Now, perhaps, you understand —"

"Bloody fucking hell," Watson interrupted sharply, looking around the warehouse. He rubbed a hand across his jaw, which was softened by a day's growth of light brown stubble, before holding it out as though to keep Mycroft at bay. "No. Whatever it is, no."

"I haven't even —"

"No," he cut in again. "I've already got one of you stalking me. Are you _really_ government? No, don't answer that. One of you is bad enough."

"John," Mycroft said, allowing a sharper edge to creep into his voice. Whether it was the voice or his first use of John's name, something cut through his irritation, silencing him. Mycroft seized the opportunity and said, "I had you brought here because I require your assistance."

"I've done my life-saving deed for the day. If you don't mind, I have plans."

"Doing what?"

John's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What concern is it of yours?"

Almost gratefully, Mycroft took back the reins of the encounter. He replaced his identity card in his coat pocket and said, "You live alone, having moved out of the barracks the day after you were issued your ration card. You've completed the bare minimum of mandatory therapy appointments to assist with integration back into civilian life. Other than to see to your dietary requirements, you haven't returned either to St. Bartholomew's Hospital or to the Hyde Park Barracks, nor have you made any effort to visit your sister, though she lives only a few miles away."

"What the _fuck_ —"

"You are not legally employable in your chosen field, and you've refused every offer of security work that you've received," Mycroft continued calmly, noting the fact that while angry, John was still very much in control of himself. He _wanted_ to attack, but it was a normal human response — not something more predatory. Wondering how far John could be pushed, Mycroft started walking forward, his voice never changing in volume or tone. "You have no memberships — no gym, no club, not even a pub that would qualify as your local. In short, Captain Watson, the only thing I am interrupting is your chance to do nothing at all."

John's nostrils flared as he inhaled, jaw clenched tight. He stood his ground, unafraid, as Mycroft closed the distance between them. "So much for the government's gratitude," he said tightly. "If you didn't want us here, why not just be rid of us? Oh, right. We're hard to kill, at least permanently. Even with a plane crash —"

"John," Mycroft interrupted, holding up his hand. He lowered his voice and tried to sound genuinely sincere — another effort he hadn't even attempted for years — as he said, "The treatment received by the soldiers of the Fifth has been unfortunate. You risked everything for Queen and country, and you were repaid with fear and unreasonable prejudice."

This time, John's inhale was calmer, his exhale coming through parted lips as his jaw relaxed. "What do you want?" he asked. It was a question, not a gauntlet.

"Work for me," Mycroft said, and then faltered, because he'd never intended to even think those words, much less to speak them, and he _never_ spoke without first thinking ten steps ahead.

John's brows shot up. "Work for you? Doing what?" he asked, looking Mycroft over, his gaze slow and comfortable, taking his time. "You seem healthy enough."

For thirty years, people had been flirting with Mycroft in hopes of manipulating him, using his family or political connections, gaining his favor, or finding creative new situations for blackmail, and Mycroft had, cheerfully and without reservation, responded appropriately every time, whether that ended in someone's bed or with Mycroft presenting a file to his superiors — or his enemy's superiors, in at least two cases.

This time, he couldn't even be certain it was flirting. It might be a simple physician's assessment of Mycroft's health, as John had implied. He might even be interested in the name of Mycroft's tailor, though his appalling fashion sense implied otherwise.

Whatever it was, the novelty of being unable to predict John's responses was both infuriating and entrancing. Mycroft had no desire to let this man slip into the underbelly of London and disappear.

How had he strayed so far from his original intent? His only thought behind this little meeting had been to convince John to go along with Sherlock's mad plan to find and destroy whatever lich had managed to sneak its way into the UK.

Now, he realised he didn't want to share John Watson at all. Especially not with Sherlock, childish as that was.

But childish desires meant nothing compared to the threat of the lich. "My brother has expressed a willingness to work with you," he explained to John. "He never works with anyone. He barely even tolerates the detectives at Scotland Yard."

"Your brother's not government," John said without hesitation. "I'm almost positive your brother's clinically insane."

"Brilliant and erratic, yes," Mycroft agreed wryly.

"You didn't bring me here to talk about your brother, though."

"No. I did not," Mycroft said, glancing at the car nearby. Security protocols or not, he trusted John Watson. Mycroft's life was built around his skill at reading people, and though John's body language was slightly off due to his changed physiology, Mycroft knew John was no threat.

The security team hidden on the catwalks overhead had been vetted and hand-picked for loyalty and discretion as well as skill, but this situation was beyond even their clearance. The rules, he reflected, no longer applied.

He brushed his left hand over his lapel and smoothed down his jacket pocket, silently giving his team the 'all clear' signal. John didn't seem to notice — or he concealed that knowledge, which was a definite possibility.

Smiling politely, Mycroft gestured to the waiting car. "Shall we discuss this somewhere more private?"

* * *

John sat in the back of the sedan, watching Mycroft sort through paper files without trying to be obvious about staring. Sherlock had been gorgeous and compelling and so brilliantly mad that just being next to him was like standing too close to the sun. In contrast, Mycroft was a bloody iceberg, all subtle menace and posh threat on the surface, making John want to know exactly what was hidden underneath. The instinct to take someone apart, to absolutely shatter that icy composure, hadn't hit like this for years — not since John's uni days, in fact, when he'd managed to seduce his MedChem professor the day after he aced her final exam.

Mycroft slid a file onto John's lap, drawing his attention. "This is, of course, classified at the highest levels," he began. When the man wasn't trying to be a complete arse, he had a beautiful speaking voice — just like his damned brother.

Now that he knew they weren't going to be killing each other, John was finding that voice very distracting. He tried to stick to business, saying, "You've seen my file. You know my clearance."

"You're now authorised for this." Mycroft paused as though gathering his thoughts. "As you said, my brother is brilliant. He currently works as a... 'consulting detective'," he explained, pronouncing the quotes. "He claims to have found evidence of a lich within the city."

"Fucking hell," John whispered. He'd seen the documentaries on lich attacks over the years. In med school, he'd read case studies of what one Canadian lich had done to its victims before it had been stopped.

Rather than taking offence, Mycroft chose not to notice John's language. "I'm certain that my brother isn't mistaken."

John exhaled again, looking thoughtfully down at the file. "Can't exactly take a chance with that sort of threat."

"Precisely my dilemma."

After a nod, John looked back at Mycroft. "What am I supposed to do? Everyone knows what happens when you go after a lich with anything less than a dragon or a suitcase nuke. I'm barely more than human."

"The file contains relevant details," Mycroft prompted calmly, gesturing at the folder.

Mycroft's steady voice helped John find a bit of distance. He opened the file and began to skim the contents. "What's Trinity Glass?"

Mycroft sighed. "Trinity Glass is the glass formed by the White Sands Incident. It's similar to fulgurite — glass formed when lightning strikes sand. Even the smallest piece of it registers higher on the WS-scale than we can currently measure."

"Radioactive as well?" John guessed.

"Extremely — and just as arcanoreactive. It can only be handled by the undead."

_The undead,_ John thought, as Sherlock's words came back to him.

John licked his lips, suddenly conscious of the hard beat of his heart against his ribs — his very much alive, very human heart. "As far as I'm aware," he said slowly, "I'm still vulnerable to radiation. I've had X-rays since returning to London."

"As long as it's been properly bespelled, you won't be harmed."

"And if it hasn't?"

"Then we wouldn't have a lich to worry about. The final step to becoming a lich is to craft the Trinity Glass into a phylactery, which neutralises the radiation."

"A what?" John interrupted.

"A vessel to contain the last drop of the lich's lifeblood. The crafting of the phylactery kills the mage — through radiation, if not through the actual spellwork." Mycroft looked at him directly, and a shock passed through John as their eyes met. "You can see why this hasn't been scientifically studied."

"Your brother's an alchemist, isn't he? He's not going to try and _use_ this phy-whatever —"

"No!" Mycroft seemed genuinely taken aback. Then he smiled reassuringly, composure in place once more. "Sherlock and I are in accord, at least in this matter. The lich must be destroyed, but to do so would potentially destroy an entire district of London if we can't get hold of the phylactery first."

"And if we can get it?" John asked, hating the bureaucratic habit of using 'we' when they really meant John — in this case, _only_ John.

"We destroy the phylactery, and the lich becomes vulnerable."

"And you want me to do this," John said, looking directly into Mycroft's eyes for a long moment. "Alone."

Mycroft inclined his head, mouth twisted in an expression of distaste. "My... analysts have assured me that one agent has a far greater chance of successful infiltration and retrieval than even a small team. The lich's defences are most likely designed to permit the lich free entry — a single undead entity. To send even two of you —"

"Right, got it," John interrupted, taking a deep breath to push aside the edge of fear rising inside him. It wasn't lack of courage, but common sense.

He wanted to suggest someone else — anyone else. He wanted to point out that before becoming a soldier, he'd been a doctor. He'd gone to war to save lives, even if he'd ended up taking more than he preserved. He'd volunteered for the EVS program because he knew his country needed him, and he knew the other soldiers would need medical attention. He hadn't volunteered because of the benefits, but he certainly hadn't hesitated over the risks.

As one of the first volunteers for the program, John was one of the first to be transitioned back to civilian status, though they were all ending their careers years ahead of schedule. Upon joining the EVS program, they had signed on for a full ten years. John had fully intended to make colonel if not brigadier by the end of those ten years, and had envisioned commanding his own medical group.

Now, like the other soldiers of the Fifth, John was lost. Until the law caught up with the concept of a civilian EVS, he couldn't practice medicine. He had no interest in security work or any of the few professions generally practiced by more traditional vampires.

Mycroft's offer, even if it was a one-time job, was too tempting to pass up, despite the danger — perhaps _because_ of it.

"I take it that arcanoscientists haven't figured out an easier way for me to change than starvation?"

"I'm afraid not. However, as a physician, whatever support you think may help, you have but to ask."

John took a deep breath, suddenly conscious of the air in his lungs and the beat of his heart. He thought about dinner and tea and his morning coffee and meeting up with a few of his mates at the pub on Friday night, but all those small comforts were meaningless compared to the threat of a lich.

So he just nodded, closed the file, and turned to his new boss. "I'll make a list."


	4. Chapter 4

**Saturday, 13 February**

The private clinic was buried deep under an unremarkable council estate in a bad part of Brixton — more proof that Mycroft had a desperate need to hide everything he touched behind layers of secrecy and intrigue. Sherlock had satisfied his minimal curiosity about the clinic on the first day he'd visited. Now, he sat in the observation room and watched the clinic's sole patient, drawn here despite everything he needed to do outside. He should be trying to find out more about the lich, contacting his informants in the arcane black market to track any exotic spellcrafting the lich might be doing, and looking for corpses to attribute to the lich's presence. Instead, he was here, staring at John Watson, EVS.

The observation window was set at an angle high in the wall of John's room. The glass was supposedly one-way, but Sherlock had no illusions that John couldn't see through it. He simply chose not to look up into the false mirror as though preferring a false sense of privacy.

The room was furnished in the faux-realism style reserved for upscale medical clinics and mid-range hotels. The furniture was wood instead of hospital-grade plastic, with bed linens in tastefully bland colours rather than bleached white. A small wardrobe held John's personal effects, and an entertainment centre offered telly and video games. A treadmill and stationary bicycle were tucked away in the corner.

None of it was quite enough to hide the blinking red light on the camera mounted to the elevated ceiling or the heavy steel door, reinforced with strips of pure silver. That was most likely an unnecessary precaution; Sherlock was almost certain that a demi-vampire could touch silver without harm, though he wouldn't mind an actual demonstration. The surveillance and security measures had also been at John's insistence — not for his protection but for the protection of the living staff at the clinic — just as he had insisted upon the active duty soldiers of the Fifth replacing the SAS guards who normally secured the facility.

For the last nine days, John had been alone in the room below, going about a predictable human routine, much to Sherlock's disappointment. He'd expected _something_ interesting from the EVS. He showered, shaved, and brushed his teeth when he awoke. He jogged on the treadmill or used the exercise bicycle, watched telly, and read e-books. Not once did a morsel of food or drop of water pass his lips. Really, there was nothing for Sherlock to see here, but he couldn't bring himself to leave.

By day five, John's was walking on the treadmill, rather than jogging. On day six, he didn't go near the treadmill. Late on day seven, his gross motor control had started to fail, and he'd stopped walking except to go to shower and shave. Since then, he'd had three abnormal cardiac incidents that left him disoriented and gasping on the bed or floor. This morning, he hadn't left the bed at all.

Sherlock hadn't left except for one brief trip to his garret for fresh clothes and nicotine patches. During John's sleep cycles, Sherlock went to the clinic's cafeteria for food and coffee. Other than that, he'd remained in the observation window, watching John slowly die.

His interest was purely scientific, he told himself. He might never have another opportunity to observe the experimental physiology of an EVS in this state. His objectivity, however, was compromised. Over the last nine days, as Sherlock watched John's body fail him, the data slipped away, replaced by the overwhelming desire to ease his pain or offer some comfort.

In the room below, John clumsily shifted the pillows propped up against the head of the bed and continued to read. As he changed pages on his e-reader, his fingers shook. Sherlock pressed a hand to the window frame, fingers pressing into the reinforced steel.

Behind Sherlock, the door to the observation room opened. He recognised the familiar tread of expensive Yves Saint Laurent dress shoes. Without turning, he complained, "The level of monitoring is insufficient. I need more detailed data to understand his physiology."

"This is not one of your experiments. Doctor Watson has precisely outlined his care regimen, which includes monitoring his condition at _this_ level," Mycroft said. He stopped beside Sherlock, though his eyes also went to John.

Sherlock gave an irritated huff that briefly clouded the glass. John was a doctor, but he wasn't a scientist. By his own admission, he had undergone this process only twice before. Sherlock could have helped him through this. There were sedatives and painkillers that would cross the arcano-physiological barrier separating his human systems from his transplanted vampiric organs. He could list no less than five helpful potions, four of which Sherlock himself could manufacture without breaking any major laws. Even basic creature-comfort spells would be better than having to watch John suffer, stoic and uncomplaining though he was.

Angry at his inability to _help_ John in some way, he focused instead on science and snapped at Mycroft, "MRI, ultrasound, CAT scan, aura mapping — and that's just the non-invasive testing we should be doing. Plus we should be documenting this, taking regular samples —"

"Doctor Watson has agreed to help you, Sherlock. Not to be your lab rat."

A sharp note in Mycroft's voice made Sherlock turn and look suspiciously at him. Mycroft was his usual smug self, with only slightly deeper frown lines to mark the gravity of the situation.

"You've already done those tests," Sherlock said. It wasn't precisely a guess, though he made a point to sound more certain than he actually felt.

"We collected all relevant data long before we subjected any of our soldiers to the procedure," Mycroft answered. Then he looked away from the window long enough to add, "You may review the files on a secure terminal _after_ the matter of the lich is resolved."

Suppressing his interest in the thought, Sherlock nodded and kept watching John. Electrode wires snaked from his chest and temples to the monitoring system beside the bed. Sherlock glanced at the monitors and asked, "How long before his cardiovascular system fails?"

"Within the hour." Mycroft nodded at the upper monitor. "Brain function is unimpaired."

Sherlock nodded, fingers clenching into a fist, though he kept his expression impassive. John had stood up to him, but not cruelly. Even his comment about Sherlock not being an escaped mental patient had been delivered with more humour than scorn.

In Sherlock's experience, people — almost universally idiots — fit into two categories: those who were useful and those who were not. Of the tiny pool of useful idiots, Sherlock knew exactly how to make most of them cave to his whims. The rest were too stubborn. Mycroft, Detective Inspector Lestrade, and the dean at Bart's all fell into that category, at varying times.

But John didn't fit. In their admittedly brief interactions, John had politely but firmly stood up to Sherlock, never devolving into insults. To the best of Sherlock's predictions, John would never accuse him of being a 'freak'. What did it say about Sherlock, that the only non-relative who tolerated him was the product of an undead-human organ transplantation experiment for the purpose of building a better killer?

Remembering that Mycroft was in the room — clever, too-perceptive Mycroft — Sherlock complained, "This is taking too long. Moon-dark is tomorrow. The lich's protection spells will be at their weakest. He'll only have a few hours before the spells start to regain strength."

"Only if your behavioural analysis of a creature you've neither met nor seen is correct," Mycroft answered. "Unless you _have?_"

Sherlock sneered at him for a moment before he went back to watching John.

Mycroft's answering sneer was wavery only because of the reflective quality of the glass. "You theorise that a lich — perhaps the most powerful, most feared post-White Sands creature known to this world — is using commercially available light-based spells to protect the cache where it's hidden its phylactery. As you surely know, it cannot _cast_ light-based spells. Reason would suggest it would use dark-based spells for protection."

"The amount of dark energy required to ensure such a creature's safety would show up even on a primary schooler's aura tester," Sherlock scoffed.

"So because we haven't found it, it doesn't exist? The same could be said of the lich itself." Mycroft paused to see if Sherlock would rise to the bait. "And then, there's the issue of still water."

Sherlock couldn't hide the slight twitch, a reflexive impulse to look at Mycroft and read his thoughts in his expression. Mycroft had gone into politics, not alchemy.

"Still water is not scientifically proven to exist," Sherlock temporised. "It fills a hole in a theoretical alchemical model of elemental interaction, but by its nature, it cannot be studied by any known means."

"CERN predicts they are two years from finding proof of the Higgs-Boson. The fact that they have yet to do so does not invalidate the potential of its existence."

Irritation prickled over Sherlock's skin. He turned away from the viewing window and snapped, "I was _attempting_ to arrange a discreet survey of the cache when" — he caught himself before saying 'John' — "Doctor Watson interrupted me."

"The nixie."

Sherlock gave a single, shallow nod. "The cache itself will be protected against any _living_ creature entering. The nixie could have scouted up to the edge of those protection spells."

"And if the cache is protected against undead creatures other than the lich? You're asking Doctor Watson to risk his very existence."

Sherlock didn't care. Sherlock _shouldn't_ care. He told himself that very firmly, because John Watson was a medical curiosity — one of seven hundred, give or take. It didn't matter that John had acted without hesitation to pull Sherlock away from the nixie. Being a Good Samaritan was nothing special; it was, in fact, well within behavioural expectations for a doctor-turned-soldier.

Sherlock had spent the last ten days trying to think of how best to arm John against whatever he might face on his way to the cache. The effort was practical, he told himself, not out of some misguided sentiment. If John failed and was destroyed, either the lich would go deeper into hiding, which would require a lot of very dull reconnaissance, or it would fly into a rage and start slaughtering the populace, which would result in tedious curfews and a possible plague outbreak if it was deemed too dangerous to collect the bodies of its victims off the streets.

Thankfully, he was rescued by the sudden shrill alarm of John's monitor. He turned and looked back down into the secure room, where John was thrashing on the bed, white-knuckled fists pressed to his chest.

"Cardiac arrest," Sherlock said, relieved. "Finally."

* * *

Mycroft had followed Doctor Watson's wishes regarding his care in all respects but one.

John himself had set the terms of his stay at the clinic, which amounted to little more than fairly extreme security and surveillance measures. Rather than easing his system into transition, he chose the more expedient route of full starvation — no blood, fluids, or food — citing only the desire to get this over with as soon as possible, though Mycroft knew that his ambition had more to do with Sherlock's stated deadline of moon-dark.

The outlined plan had specified no medical care beyond basic testing and monitoring for John's own edification. As soon as John went into arrest, though, Mycroft went to the phone on the wall and dialled his assistant. "Send in Doctor Skogstad."

Twenty seconds later, the door to John's room opened. The young man who entered was nineteen, a prodigy at aura manipulation, trained at the Norwegian University of Science, Technology, and Arcanology. He'd graduated with his masters at sixteen and had earned his PhD three months before Mycroft had recruited him.

"Who is that?" Sherlock demanded, cold anger creeping into his voice. "John specified —"

_John,_ Mycroft thought suspiciously, wondering at what point the EVS had become a person to Sherlock. "I am aware of Doctor Watson's care regimen," Mycroft said, not taking his eyes from the scene below. "When he drew up the plans, though, he was unaware of Doctor Skogstad's presence on my staff."

Skogstad walked to the side of John's bed, throwing a nervous glance at the one-way mirror through which the Holmes brothers observed the proceedings. Then he bit his lip, tossed his head to throw dyed black hair out of his eyes, and extended his hands. John's skin had gone ashen, lips blue and oxygen-starved. His eyes were open and tracked to Skogstad's movement — he was horribly aware and fully conscious of his human body's death — but he couldn't draw breath to speak.

"He's a shaman." Sherlock put a hand to the glass and leaned in to watch, though he was still frowning.

"The finest in Europe," Mycroft agreed.

Slowly, as though straining against an unseen force, Skogstad lowered his hands until his fingers hovered an inch above John's sternum and abdomen. As he did, John's muscles began to relax, and he no longer had to fight back an agonised scream. The cardiac monitor remained flatlined; the brainwaves smoothed out, no longer spiking violently in response to the pain of physical death.

Sherlock exhaled quietly, breath ghosting over the one-way mirror. Out of the corner of his eye, Mycroft watched Sherlock's tense, flattened fingers relax and curl back from the glass as though Skogstad had relieved not just John's distress but Sherlock's as well.

An uncharacteristic flare of possessiveness shot through Mycroft. Unthinkable as it was, Sherlock apparently felt a connection to John, one that would end well for neither of them. It had taken Sherlock eight years and three stints in rehab to recover from what should have been a typical uni breakup with Victor Trevor. Since then, Sherlock had avoided any close contact, other than the occasional one-night stand. Perversely, he seemed to pride himself on being so unlikable as to not even have friends. Instead, Sherlock collected people he could manipulate into giving him whatever he wanted, such as the girl at the morgue or his network of paid informants.

Allowing Sherlock anywhere near a relationship, even just a friendship, was a recipe for disaster. And while Mycroft normally wouldn't care, John Watson was too... too _valuable,_ he decided, refusing to acknowledge any of the other words his mind supplied, words that had to do with courage and patriotism and attractiveness.

When Doctor Skogstad finally left the room, Mycroft took out his pocket watch and checked the time. He was late for an appointment, but this was more important. "I saw no need for him to suffer," he told Sherlock as he put the watch back into his pocket. "When you tell him I disregarded his instructions for no care, do remember to explain my motive for doing so."

Sherlock's chin lifted defiantly, though he never looked away from John. Mycroft glanced down through the window, but he couldn't bring himself to watch the handsome, dynamic man lying there, a corpse in all but brainwaves, for more than a few seconds.

Quietly, he left the observation room. His assistant met him at the foot of the staircase. "Sir," she acknowledged with a small nod.

Mycroft hesitated. He considered ordering her to remain, observe, and update him on Sherlock's behavior. But rationally, he had no excuse. He had no prior claim on John — not even the excuse of government business. John had agreed to one mission, not full-time employment, and given how fascinatingly difficult he was to read, Mycroft was second-guessing that certain _look_ in John's eyes, no more than a flash of possible desire and interest.

Best to leave everything professional. In fact, a bit of distance might even work to Mycroft's advantage, offering John a steady anchor of sanity in the whirlpool of Sherlock's madness — something to which he would naturally gravitate, seeking balance.

Yes. That would do nicely.


	5. Chapter 5

**Sunday, 14 February**

John awoke reluctantly, every inch of his body screaming as if he'd been hit by a truck, run down, and then run over by the three cars behind it. He rubbed at his eyes, blinking to try and clear his vision. The light overhead was a blob marred by a dark blur that slowly resolved itself into the pale, gorgeously sculpted face that had been watching him on and off for the last... How long had it been?

There was a gap in his memory.

He tried to speak, but nothing happened until he took a breath. It felt stilted, artificial, like he was forcing his body to fight the inertia of absolute stillness.

"What — What happened?" he asked on the exhale, trying to sit up. Something pulled at his cheek. He touched his fingertips to his face and found tape stretched over his skin, holding a tube in place. He followed it to his nostril and swallowed, wondering at the need for the naso-Hevet tubing.

"Your consciousness was shifted out of synchronicity with your physiology," Sherlock explained.

"You mean, I was dead." John winced as he pulled the tape off. He'd forgot how unpleasantly disorienting everything was, in this condition. Sherlock's heart was like a drum in John's ears. He could count the threads in the medical-grade bedsheets under his bare feet. The atomised remnants of cleaning chemicals in the air seemed to seep through his sinuses and coat the backs of his eyes.

"Mycroft decided your physiological death would be unpleasant for you. He arranged for you to not experience it."

"Right." John twisted to face away from Sherlock. He sat up on the edge of the bed and started working the naso-Hevet tubing out. It was murky with blood, but all he could smell was the plastic. He retched and closed his eyes, trying to remove the tubing smoothly and quickly.

As he pulled the last few inches of tubing free, Sherlock came around the foot of the bed, wearing an annoyed expression. "You were dead for almost eighteen hours."

"Your sympathy is overwhelming." John pressed a hand to his chest. Now that he was undead, breathing wasn't reflexive, but he was remembering the knack of it. It was easier to breathe from the chest, though it was less efficient. Then again, he only needed breath to speak, not to provide oxygen to tissues that were no longer living.

He rose too quickly. The world shifted under his feet as his brain struggled for balance without input from his inner ear. Sherlock's hand caught John's elbow, holding him steady. His other hand closed around John's wrist, fingers pressing gently as though searching for a pulse. Not that he'd find one.

John closed his eyes, which helped to shift his perception to his skin and aura. Had he been awake through his physical death, his brain would have integrated with his vampiric physiology on a deeper level. Now, he'd have to find a way to manage it consciously.

"We should go as soon as you're ready." The impatient edge in Sherlock's voice was in direct conflict to his strong, gentle touch. The pressure of his fingers eased, accompanied by a subtle, circular motion that sent hot shivers up John's arm.

He drew closer to Sherlock without thinking, feeling the warmth of the man's living aura draw him like a light in the darkness. His shoulder pressed against Sherlock's chest, and the beat of his living heart thundered into John's body. He wanted to crawl into that warmth, that life. He turned his head and breathed in laundry detergent and soap and deodorant. He tasted pheromones and heat, drawn indirectly by breath to his tongue, and he wondered how much stronger — better — it would taste if he licked bare skin.

"John?"

The question was low and rough, but the sound, even delivered in that velvety baritone, was enough to snap John out of his sensory daze. He felt soft threads against his cheek and realised he'd been rubbing against Sherlock's shoulder like a cat.

Furious at himself, he jerked free and staggered back a step, holding out a hand to keep Sherlock at bay. "I'm fine," he lied. "Go... get me something to eat. Drink," he corrected himself.

"Are —"

_"Go!"_ John barked, and this time, Sherlock went. His first two steps were hesitant before they quickened. He wrenched open the door and was calling for a nurse before it swung shut again.

Exhaling the last of his air, John sat down and pressed his hands to his eyes. No plan survived first contact with the enemy. There was always something that hadn't been anticipated, and in this case, it was Sherlock and his warmth or pheromones or _something_.

When John had first been starved in the lab, he'd been restrained, tested, and then promptly given blood transfusions and nutrients to restart his human body once the researchers had the information they needed. The test had been brief by necessity. The Fifth had been shipped out to Camp Bastion less than a week later, as soon as they were pronounced fit for combat. In the field, the starvation hadn't been planned. The enemy's spellcasters had been far more skilled than intel originally estimated, and they'd used half-tame firedrakes to harass John's section deeper into the mountains, cutting them off from the rest of their regiment.

He couldn't recall this sort of desperate, hungry attraction for the nurses or doctors during the first starvation test. In the field, there'd been no humans left alive by the end of the battle — only the other soldiers in his section. By the time they returned to their FOB, they'd been a bit more in control of themselves.

Was it just Sherlock he wanted? He'd been attracted to Sherlock before, though not so much that he'd ignore all the red flags Sherlock set off. The very thought of any sort of relationship with Sherlock — even a one-night stand — should have been enough to quash John's desire as effectively as a bucket of ice water, but John could barely think beyond the need to tear through Sherlock's clothes, filling his senses with the scent and feel and _taste_ of Sherlock.

Sherlock returned, alone, just as John picked up the room phone. As soon as a nurse answered, John said, "Bring me an arcano-charged colloidal white gold solution of diazepam and chlorpromazine and two — no, three twenty-gauge syringes."

"Chlorpromazine?" Sherlock asked sharply as John replaced the handset. He offered John an insulated travel mug, the type humans used for their morning coffee. "That's an antipsychotic."

"It improves the effect of the diazepam. Sensory overload. I need... time to get used to the shift." Wondering if the masquerade of normality was for his benefit or Sherlock's, John hung up the phone and took the mug.

He flipped open the travel lid and drank, trying not to think about whether he was drinking cow or pig, or something truly vile, like rat. He kept his eyes closed as he quickly swallowed the lukewarm liquid. He tried not to think about Sherlock standing not a foot away, his blood naturally warm and not drained, refrigerated, and then reheated.

_Move away,_ John thought, wishing that vampirism conveyed the sort of mythical ability to control others that had featured so heavily in pre-White Sands vampire novels. Dracula sure as hell didn't have this problem. Of course, Dracula also had three permanent girlfriends, and that was before he'd lured in Jonathan Harker and Mina Murray.

Infuriatingly, Sherlock stayed where he was. Even more infuriatingly, his heart rate accelerated, for no good reason John could fathom. His respiration accelerated and his aura spiked, raising the hairs on John's arms like a feather-light touch. Before becoming an EVS, he'd never sensed an aura in his life. After, he'd learned to feel them from a few inches away, but the sensation was muted. Now, though, he could practically taste Sherlock's aura as it crawled over his skin like tongues of flame, curling and caressing, enticing him towards that heat and power.

"Sherlock." He got out the word with the last of his breath. His next inhale tasted of Sherlock, as if his body were attempting to chemically bridge the distance between them. "You need to step back."

"Why?"

For days, Sherlock had been watching John through the vaguely blurry one-way glass. Maybe he was fascinated by the scientific anomaly of a person who was both living and dead, and who could switch between those two states with a brief dietary change. Maybe he was a vampire fetishist. Under any other circumstance, John might well be interested in finding out which it was, but he had no time for that now — not if he was expected to deal with a fucking lich's defence-spells in the next few hours.

He exhaled, his body going silent and still, with only his vampiric organs firing the neurons in his brain. Calmly, he leaned forward and set the half-empty travel mug on the bedside table.

Then he _moved,_ up and off the bed, and caught Sherlock by the shoulders. Three steps, impossibly fast, drove them both across the room, and he cushioned most of the blow by his hands, but slammed Sherlock's body into the wall hard enough to shock him into his right mind.

He couldn't keep himself from inhaling right up against Sherlock's throat. Keeping his lips off skin was almost physically painful. Sherlock's heart was racing now, pulse bare millimetres from John's mouth. His hair teased over John's forehead, catching in his eyelashes.

Very, very quietly, he warned, "Until I get this under control, you need to not be here with me."

"What does it feel like?"

The question threw John into a tailspin, giving his brain something to latch onto, irrational as it was. He backed off enough to stare up at Sherlock in confusion, and he felt a surge of triumph at the sight of Sherlock's flushed cheeks and dilated pupils.

_I want to own you,_ the primal, dominant part of his mind thought.

Before he could actually say it, the door banged open. John pushed back and away from Sherlock as people rushed inside, crowding the two of them farther apart. John's predatory side recognised them — they were all soldiers of the Fifth — and calmed in their presence.

"Let's not eat the civilians, Captain." The voice was familiar: Bill Murray, one of the regiment's two nurses. John took a breath that tasted like the cheap laundry soap used at the barracks.

He laughed and held up his hands, looking around to make certain that Sherlock was gone. "Ten minutes with that one, and anyone would be tempted," he muttered truthfully, ignoring the possessiveness that twisted through him at the thought. "Anyway, false alarm. I was just teaching him what happens when you poke a scorpion with a stick."

* * *

"What did you do this time?" Mycroft asked as he ascended the steps to the observation room where Sherlock was pacing and glaring through the one-way window.

"Nothing." It came out immediately, followed by a glare that warned Mycroft that Sherlock was letting his emotions — or the denial of his emotions — interfere with his rationality. "You need to countermand his order for the diazepam and chlorpromazine."

"Given that I am not a physician and Doctor Watson is, why would I do that?" Mycroft asked. He wanted to take out his mobile and get one of his people to tell him the details of John's requested medication, but he loathed admitting gaps in his knowledge to Sherlock.

Sherlock turned to glare at him. "Because John is neither anxious nor psychotic. He's doing this because _you_ interfered, and if it could get him destroyed if he's at anything less than top form."

Mycroft doubted Sherlock's concern was restricted to John's success on the mission. More telling was the subtle dishevelment of Sherlock's clothes. His shirt, usually pulled taut and tucked into his tight trousers, was rucked up on the left side. His hair, never particularly neat, was fluffed up as though he'd been raking his fingers through it. The bottom corner of his lip was reddened as though he'd bit it, a nervous habit he'd had since childhood.

Mycroft walked the rest of the way into the observation room and looked down at John and the soldiers with him. The alert Mycroft had received had been frustratingly nonspecific, but fortunately he'd already been on his way to the facility and had arrived within minutes. Whatever had happened, John's demand for the Fifth to stand as his guards apparently had been both necessary and effective. The room below was calm, with two soldiers on guard at the door and two more by the bed where John sat.

"Sherlock," Mycroft said carefully, "do I need to review the security footage, or are you going to tell me what you've done?"

Sherlock answered that with another glare. He crossed his arms, straining his shirt across the shoulders, and looked back down. "Are you going to stop him?" he demanded.

Mycroft was tempted to just refuse, but he needed Sherlock focused on the lich and its phylactery, not caught up in a childish tantrum. So instead, he turned and went back downstairs, where he nodded to the soldier on duty and swiped his access card. The door unlocked with a loud thunk of magnetic solenoids, then swung open. One of the soldiers inside prepared to bar the way.

A flash of one of his ID cards gained Mycroft entry without protest. John looked back, his dark blue eyes almost crackling with intensity, fixing right on Mycroft as though drawn to him.

"Do you have a moment, Doctor?" Mycroft asked.

John stared at him, frowning. One of the soldiers beside him spoke very softly, too softly for Mycroft to hear. John turned back to the soldier and nodded. "It should be fine," he answered. "Just keep Sherlock out. And when the meds get here, send them in."

"We'll be right outside, Captain," the man closest to John said before leading the other soldier away from the bed.

As the four soldiers left, John stood and turned to face Mycroft. "I should be ready in a couple of hours," he said calmly. "I need time to adjust, since I just regained consciousness."

Mycroft allowed the reprimand to pass unanswered. He had no way to gauge if John was truly angry or merely irritated at the break in his specified procedures. John's body language was off, compared to both humans and the few vampires with whom Mycroft had dealt in the past. "I understand you've requested medication."

John's nod almost disguised the way his eyes flicked down, scanning over Mycroft's body and back up too quickly for most people to even notice. "You deviated from the course of treatment — the _lack_ of treatment — that I outlined."

"You made your decisions without full knowledge of the available resources."

"You made the decision _for me_ without consulting me first," John accused. He took one step towards Mycroft before he stopped, shifting his weight abruptly back as though burned. He stared at Mycroft, slightly bewildered.

Wondering what John had sensed, Mycroft continued soothingly, "By the time the arrangements were made, you were already in a compromised state. Doctor Skogstad —"

"If you _ever_ do that without my consent again, I'll quit," John threatened calmly. "I'm not a soldier anymore, Mr. Holmes. You have no right to interfere with my refusal of medical treatments."

Mycroft bristled — _no one_ spoke to him that way — but he hid all signs of his irritation, conscious that Sherlock was watching them. Instead he nodded, lowering his voice to quietly say, "I apologise, Doctor. I give you my word, it won't happen again."

An argument would have given John something to brace against; the apology surprised him into silent consideration. After a moment, John relaxed and said, "Thank you."

Relieved, Mycroft took another step closer, saying, "This medication, then..."

John nodded, one corner of his mouth twitching up marginally. He inhaled and said, "I doubt you're here to deliver it, unless you're changing professions."

Rarely did Mycroft genuinely smile in the course of his work; now, he did. "I hardly think I have the temperament for medicine. But Sherlock is familiar with modern pharmacology as well as alchemical remedies, and he expressed some distress over your choice."

John glanced up past Mycroft, most likely looking straight at Sherlock, but only for a moment. "It's primarily used to treat anxiety."

"He implied it would have a deleterious effect on your ability to respond in combat."

Something about that made John smile. "It's a side-effect, but if I'm guessing right about my physiology in this state, I'll be fine. And if not, I'll process the dose in about a two hours."

"Why take it, then?"

"It has the side-effect of reducing sensory input."

"I'm sorry, Doctor," Mycroft said, frustrated with the lack of information. He'd read every EVS file available, but none had mentioned this particular combination of drugs. "How is that in any way advantageous?"

"It's your fault, really," John accused, though he smiled faintly. "If I'd been conscious while dying, I would've had time to adjust. Like this, though... it's like being in a dark room for hours — days, even — and then having someone suddenly turn all the lights on. It's overwhelming until you get used to it."

"Ah. And in your case, it affects all of your senses."

John stepped closer, chest rising as he inhaled. "I can taste your soap, the dry cleaning chemicals, the rain on your wool jacket. I can hear your heart beating — accelerating now, as you're listening to me. I can feel your aura against mine. The heat radiating from your body."

"Oh," Mycroft said softly.

He lifted a hand, touching the cuff of Mycroft's shirt where it peeked out under his sleeve. "I can feel every individual thread. I can feel the grains of starch spray caught between them." His finger slipped under the cuff, blunt nail scraping over the back of Mycroft's wrist, stealing his breath.

"John —"

"I can feel _everything_," John said quietly. "No one else knows what you're hiding, but I do. Look at you, with your perfect, tailored layers, shoes polished despite the rain. Looking at you, no one would guess how fast your heart is racing. Your body's screaming for oxygen, but you're controlling your breathing. If you keep doing that, you'll get dizzy, you know. "

Mycroft wanted to speak. He wanted to step away or to step closer. He wanted to do _something,_ but John had scraped his self-control raw, exposing needs he'd kept hidden even from himself.

"You need to go, Mycroft," John said for him. "Right now, you need to get out of here, before I tear apart those layers and see what you're hiding underneath. Is that what you want?"

Biting back his first answer, Mycroft inclined his head, not in affirmation but acceptance. "At the moment, that would be imprudent," he agreed, stepping back. "I'll ensure the nurse on duty brings you whatever you require."

"Send Corporal Murray," John said. His hand fell away only when Mycroft stepped out of reach, but he still didn't look away from Mycroft's eyes. "Best not to take chances with humans."

Mycroft considered his response carefully, wanting nothing more than to stay and indulge his curiosity in this new facet of Doctor John Watson. "We can discuss this further, after the lich has been destroyed."

John took a breath, but said nothing as he glanced up at the mirrored glass. Mycroft followed his gaze, wondering if Sherlock had been observing them this whole time. Had he seen John so expertly break down Mycroft's defences? He would never hear the end of it.

But that wouldn't stop Mycroft from seeking John out later, somewhere more private. He was quickly growing enamoured with this ordinary doctor-turned-soldier.

After a moment, John nodded and sat back down on the edge of his bed. "Thank you," he said, giving Mycroft one last look as he left the room.

Apparently, Sherlock hadn't been observing, at least not towards the end. Mycroft found him in the hall, locked in a silent battle of glares with the two soldiers guarding John's door. Behind Sherlock, one of the clinic nurses anxiously shifted her weight from side to side, trying to see past him. Mycroft blocked Sherlock's path until the door swung shut and the security lock engaged.

"Corporal Murray?" he asked, looking to the soldiers, rather than Sherlock.

"Here, sir." One of the soldiers, a cheerful-looking young man, stepped up beside Sherlock and nodded.

"Please bring Doctor Watson the medication he requested," Mycroft instructed, gesturing to the tray that the clinic nurse was holding.

"Mycroft," Sherlock protested.

Mycroft held Sherlock's gaze steadily. He'd already made one mistake in overruling John's medical orders; he would take more care with John in future. After a moment, Sherlock whirled away and went back up to the observation room, his footsteps obnoxiously loud on the stairs.

With a nod to the corporal, Mycroft turned and went the other direction, to the office that the clinic staff had set aside for his use. Right now, he had no desire to deal with his brother or the clinic personnel — not until he could put his thoughts about John Watson into some sort of reasonable, rational order.


	6. Chapter 6

**Sunday, 14 February**

"What additional intel do you have?" John asked, tearing open the packet of chewing gum he'd lifted from Torres. She always carried gum — she'd once told him she was addicted to peppermint — and he'd cited a medical emergency when he'd confiscated the pack from her. His tongue felt like he'd been licking paint, presumably a side-effect of either the drugs or the white gold colloid.

Unfortunately, he was flying blind with his self-medication, but so far, it seemed to be working. At least, he hadn't attacked either of the Holmes brothers, despite being trapped in a large, posh SUV with them both. Somehow, he'd ended up seated between them, which made him realise they were both idiots. Had neither of them figured out that he was _dangerous_ in this state?

"I believe the cache is beyond an old underground station, part of the original lines. Due to poor engineering, it flooded soon after it was built, so it may still be entirely underwater," Sherlock said. "Hence, the nixie."

The woman in the front passenger seat turned back, extending a file folder between the seats. Mycroft took it and passed it to John, saying, "To avoid alerting your target, we chose not to send in any reconnaissance teams, nor to use any divination or farseeing spells."

"Best not to," John agreed, flipping open the file. Maps, an old subway tunnel diagram, even an old, sepia-style photograph showing curved, tiled walls and several men in top hats and formal coats. The fixtures on the walls looked like gas lamps.

He turned to the next photograph, growing conscious of the warmth surrounding him. The three of them were on a bench seat that was comfortable but cosy, the outside of Sherlock's leg pressed to John's right, Mycroft's to his left. Their breaths were out of cadence, shifting their shoulders against his in a rhythm that he couldn't accurately predict.

He tried to ignore it, almost wishing he had the excuse of that overwhelming sensory input to explain just how aware he was of the two men beside him. Once he'd given himself the injection, enough of his rational, thinking brain had been freed from more primitive instincts, leaving him mortified at his own behaviour. He'd assaulted one brother and openly hit on the other, and in both cases, he'd been a single breath away from just _taking_.

The only reason they were still with him was because of the lich. There was no other explanation. Under any other circumstance, he'd be under arrest, either for assault or something far worse, depending on how angry the elder Holmes actually was.

He'd get through this. He'd retrieve the Trinity Glass phylactery for them and do whatever else was necessary to take down the lich, and then he'd tell Mycroft that this was a one-time contract and not permanent employment. They'd never have to see him again, and he would make sure to never, ever starve himself if there was any risk of running into living humans.

"What's this?" he asked as he found a second folder inside the first. This one was white, edged in red tape, with an impressive-looking seal in black and red ink, glowing faintly with magical power.

"Intelligence from our American friends," Mycroft said. "You've both been cleared for this."

Before John could open it, Sherlock snatched the classified file and opened it across both their laps. He held the edges, which pressed his right hand against John's thigh. John's skin came alive at the touch, shivering with energy at the way heat seemed to coil around him.

He took a breath to protest, and the taste of paint and artificial peppermint disappeared under the wool and soap and heated skin that seemed to fill the back seat.

His hand shook as he pushed the file off his lap and onto Sherlock's. He shifted closer to Mycroft so he could get at the left outer pocket of his jacket, and then settled back between them, trying to draw in on himself to minimise the way the two humans were crowded up against him.

"John?" Sherlock asked, and John had to clench his teeth and fight his reaction to the way that voice seemed to reach deep inside him.

"One minute," he muttered, fumbling the medication vial and one of his two remaining syringes out of his pocket. He uncapped the syringe and stabbed the needle through the stopper.

Sherlock put out a hand. "You don't need —"

"Actually, I do," John interrupted, twisting away from the touch as he drew half the remaining liquid into the syringe. He pulled the needle free and dropped the vial back into his pocket, hoping that the third dose wouldn't be needed until after he'd found the Trinity Glass.

He unbuttoned his shirt, feeling with his right hand for the intercostal space closest to the Hevet organ attached to his stomach, near the esophagus. He should have changed out the needle, but a little extra strength was enough to force it through his skin at a shallow angle. The needle was long, and he pushed it in as far as it would go, flinching a bit as his vampiric senses registered the needle's presence at his target.

He gave himself thirty seconds to fully depress the plunger, though it felt like hours. Ten seconds in, everything began to go distant, and by the time the syringe was completely empty, the world had gone hazy and grey. He could barely feel the needle as he pulled it out of his body. He twisted the needle off, intending to pocket it. Later, he could break the needle into tiny pieces and dispose of them in a refuse bin.

Dull red caught his eye. He looked and saw the female assistant holding out a small, reinforced sharps box. "You do this often, then?" he asked her as he put the needle and syringe into the one-way port on the box.

"We prefer to be prepared for all contingencies," she answered. John wondered if her smile was meant to be polite or flirtatious.

After he buttoned up his shirt, he got out another piece of gum and added it to the one he was already chewing. It didn't mix well with the anticoagulants in his saliva, but it was better than the aftertaste left by the medication.

"Right, sorry," he said, turning back to Sherlock. "Let's see that file."

* * *

The SUV stopped in an underground car park close to the tunnel entrance that would hopefully take John to the lich's cache. Sherlock opened the door and exited the SUV before Mycroft's flunky could even disengage her seat belt. "I'll text you with updates," Sherlock told Mycroft, before he could so much as shift his weight, much less actually get out of the vehicle.

Mycroft glared at him, but his eyes slid to John. An unpleasant, possessive streak seared its way through Sherlock's chest and into his brain — something he hadn't experienced for years and had hoped to never feel again. Now that he did, though, he wasn't about to let go.

When John was out of the vehicle, he turned, standing in the way of Sherlock's desire to close the door. "It's all right," John told Mycroft. "I'll send your brother back to you in one piece."

"Lovely. How sentimental," Sherlock said dryly, and leaned in close so he could close the door.

John stepped back, and for one moment, they were pressed together from thighs to shoulders. The curve of John's arse pressed into Sherlock's legs, and his hair tickled at Sherlock's nose.

Then he moved smoothly away with a murmured apology, leaving Sherlock feeling cold and abandoned. He caught John's arm and steered him through a row of parked cars, plotting his route against traffic to minimise the chances of Mycroft directing the SUV to follow. On the far side of the car park, he took John up a flight of stairs to the sidewalk.

"Wait. Where are we going?" John asked, looking back.

Instead of answering, Sherlock consulted his mental map of London, oriented himself, and headed for the nearest coffee shop. "You injected yourself not twenty minutes ago, just over two hours after your previous one. We have an hour forty to kill before you're ready to go back."

John looked at him sharply, as if considering protesting, but finally nodded. He zipped up his jacket and stuck his hands in his pockets. "Right. If we kill about an hour, that should do."

Sherlock let that pass. "Are you actually cold?"

John smiled wryly. "No. But we were taught to mimic others to avoid drawing attention. As far as I know, I can handle anything between liquid nitrogen and actual fire." The last word came out clipped.

"Fire kills actual vampires."

"Kills all sorts of things," John said tersely.

He'd seen someone die to fire: an EVS, specifically. Making a mental note to steal Mycroft's files, Sherlock got back to his list of questions. "What about silver?"

"No. Probably not even now," John said with a more relaxed shrug.

"Obviously not sunlight — though that's hardly a risk in London," Sherlock observed, glancing up at the thick overcast. Rain had been falling sporadically through the day. "You were jogging in the park. Do you need exercise?"

"No idea." John grinned up at him. "I've been careful to stay in shape since my rugby days before uni, though. Not about to let myself go now, even if I have an excuse. Besides, if I didn't jog, who would save your arse from any stray nixie that caught your eye?"

Sherlock paused outside the coffee shop, hand on the door, and looked directly into John's eyes. The deep blue colour was slightly dulled, either by the murky weather or by the drugs, and Sherlock vowed not to let John leave his side until the dark intensity returned to their depths. "Nixies seduce their victims through illusion, pheromones, and guile, luring men to their deaths by drowning. Women are safe from them, as are children — and those of us who prefer other men."

* * *

Even through the distance imposed by the drugs, John's instincts sluggishly urged him to take advantage of the open invitation. Though he generally favoured women over men by about two-to-one so far, he'd definitely put Sherlock into that one-third minority. He was beautiful like a lightning storm, destructive, awe-inspiring, and entrancing.

But this fixation bordered on obsession like nothing John had ever before experienced — except for Mycroft, which didn't help one damned bit. Bad enough to be lusting after a man who was incredible and hazardous in equal measure. To also want his brother was just _wrong_. John wasn't like that.

With a dramatic swirl of his coat, Sherlock disappeared into the coffee shop, leaving John standing outside in the cold. He stepped up to follow before he remembered the woman in the SUV. Gorgeous face, all the right curves, lovely voice, just the right combination of aloof and enticing... And yet, she had barely even registered on John's consciousness, even though she was precisely the type of woman he'd try to chat up at a bar or party. It was as if the Holmes brothers had entirely eclipsed her presence, blocking out everything until his world narrowed to _them_.

And that was bad, because one of them was his boss, at least at the moment, and the other was absolutely insane, and they were _brothers,_ which could be even messier than the time Harry had caught him hitting on Clara in the kitchen that one Christmas.

"Fucking hell," he muttered, wondering if it was too late to sneak away. He could find a restaurant, eat something to jump-start his human systems, and leave London. Or England. He wondered if he could pass unnoticed through the aura-scanners at the international airports, or if he'd be stuck hitchhiking. And it would only be for about forty years — just long enough for the Holmeses to forget he ever existed. Not a very long time at all, given that he was essentially immortal.

Nice as the idea was, though, he wasn't enough of a coward to run from either a complex tangle of lust or romance. Hell, if he was going to run from anything, the sensible thing to run from was the lich, and he was still fully prepared to head _towards_ it instead. Maybe if he was lucky, he'd find the Trinity Glass, get it to Sherlock, and then get killed by the lich before he could get caught up in the sibling rivalry.

Cheered by the thought, he went into the coffee shop, realising only then that this was a particularly cruel choice of where to wait out the medication. The only mercy was that his vampiric senses apparently didn't find the smell of coffee very appealing. He took a table by the door and practiced breathing naturally as he watched the sidewalk.

Sherlock joined him a few minutes later, with a tall paper cup of dark, murky coffee despite the swirl of milk he'd added, and a stack of two brownies that looked like they were melting into a liquid pile of chocolatey heaven. John stared at the dessert, wondering if killing Sherlock for eating in front of him like this, while he was undead, would count as justifiable homicide.

"Other than the sensory overstimulation, did you prefer to be unconscious for the process or not?" Sherlock asked, being discreet in a roundabout sort of way. "You _have_ done it before, you said."

"Twice." John glanced around at the half-full coffee shop. "Do you really want to have this conversation here?"

Sherlock barely gave the other patrons a moment's consideration. "They're all caught up in their own petty concerns. Only the barista is interested enough to give us any difficulty — she prefers blondes, and you're close enough to qualify, thanks to the desert sun — but I ordered a quad espresso, not coffee, so she won't be by to offer refills."

John stared at Sherlock, processing the quick flow of words. He glanced behind the counter, and sure enough, the barista was shooting him interested looks that he might have appreciated had she been ten years older.

Remembering the strange conversation they'd had in the hall at Bart's, he turned back to Sherlock and asked, "Is that what you do? Look at people and figure them out?"

"You told Mycroft that if you'd been conscious through the process, you would have adjusted to your heightened senses."

"Do you always ignore questions?" he asked, glaring enviously at Sherlock as he scooped his fork through both brownies and ate the oversized bite. The bastard took his time about it, tongue sliding along the tines. The brownies were soft, more like fudge than cake, the type of brownie that would melt into a rush of pure flavour.

"Only obvious ones. How long would the adjustment process have taken? Eighteen hours? That was the time between your arrest and the shift in your EKG and aura readings."

John took a breath for the sole purpose of sighing. The taste of chocolate hovering in the air went poorly with the flat, bitter taste of the medication. He dug into his pockets for another piece of gum. "I would've sped it up through physical exertion. That's why I wanted the treadmill and bicycle."

"You went into cardiac arrest," Sherlock protested, sipping at his espresso. "You wouldn't have been able to walk."

Even though they were being ignored, as Sherlock had predicted, John lowered his voice before saying, "Once my heart had completely stopped, I would've been able to move. The muscle contractions after that point are predictable. I probably could've cut it to twelve hours, maybe thirteen."

Sherlock snorted and stabbed his fork through the brownies. Confectioner's sugar puffed up into the air. "Thirteen hours of agony to save five hours of time is a foolish trade-off, between the mental distraction and lingering physiological effects."

It took a moment for John's mind to catch up and realise just why Sherlock was protesting. "Thank you."

Bent over his plate, Sherlock looked at John through the shadow of ridiculously long, dark eyelashes. "For?"

John smirked. "Being concerned for me."

Instead of answering, Sherlock took another bite of his dessert.

* * *

Four shots of espresso, five spoons of sugar, and two brownies added up to more calories than Sherlock consumed in two days on average, and left his body trembling as it tried to process the rush of chemical stimulants. The four nicotine patches he'd stuck to his arms while waiting on line did nothing to help, and by the time he and John left the coffee shop an hour and ten minutes later, Sherlock was nearly as high as the last time he'd indulged in cocaine.

He walked quickly through the drizzling rain, holding John's arm, distractedly explaining why it was impossible to chemically analyse trace auras at a violent crime scene — "Violent death overwrites all but the strongest auras. It's why the weak-minded have nightmares when they go on those ridiculous tourist vacations to haunted hotels."

"Then how do deathspeakers contact murder victims?"

"Exactly!" Sherlock grinned at John. "That means that whatever enables deathspeakers to access the thought-memory associated with a particular brain — you do know the brain must be intact for a deathspeaker to make contact?"

"Oh. No, I didn't," John admitted.

Sherlock waved his hand, steering John into an alley that would cut across to the other side of the car park. He didn't trust Mycroft to not leave his minions lurking there to observe. "For years, people thought it was an aura-based transmission, perhaps accessing the deceased's akashic record, but obviously it's physiological in nature. Otherwise, the brain wouldn't be required. Any of the major chakras would suffice."

"I thought you're an alchemist."

"Among other things. I don't clutter up my brain with useless trivia — only that which is applicable to my immediate needs and interests." At the far end of the alley, Sherlock pulled John into the stairwell. This entrance was rarely used; it had been constructed to satisfy fire codes, not traffic patterns.

"What do you consider useless?"

"John," Sherlock scolded, disappointed. "Why would I bother to remember a list of things I've deleted from my memory?"

"Maybe so other people know which categories you'll be rubbish at for pub quizzes?"

Sherlock couldn't hide his shudder. "Pointless. I have far better things to do with my time," he said as they reached the bottom of the staircase. John turned towards the exit. Sherlock caught his arm and pulled him back below the stairs. Debris crunched and squished unpleasantly underfoot.

"What are you doing?" John demanded. His arm tensed under Sherlock's hand, though he followed. "Is the entrance back here, then?"

"We need privacy. Switch places with me," Sherlock instructed, pulling John under the stairs, back against the corner. "Can you see clearly?"

"Yes. Why —"

"Are the drugs wearing off, then?" He pushed up the sleeve to his coat and unbuttoned his shirt cuff.

"Mostly. Which means this is a _spectacularly_ bad idea, whatever you're thinking."

"I never have bad ideas," Sherlock told him as he pushed his left cuff up over his elbow. Then he removed a folding knife from his coat pocket, holding it comfortably in his right hand.

John inhaled loudly and quickly. "Sherlock. I can't legally carry that. Besides, it's not going to do a damned thing against whatever defences a lich might have."

"It's not for you," he said, unfolding the blade.

Faster than Sherlock had anticipated, even factoring in the physiological changes, John's hand shot out to catch hold of Sherlock's right wrist. "Tell me precisely what you're doing."

"You're going after the only thing in the world precious to a lich. There's every chance that you might trip an alarm that notifies it of your presence. I'm not sending you in there with nothing but drugs and cow's blood in your system."

"Oh, no. Sherlock, you are _not_ bleeding yourself for me."

Sherlock glanced down, and though he couldn't see in the darkness, he knew precisely where the blade was. John was holding his right wrist, but his left was free. He braced the knife in his fingers and brought his left arm up, drawing the inside of his forearm across the edge of the blade. The cut was deeper than he'd intended, perhaps two inches long.

John let go, shoving his arm away as he pressed back into the corner. "Sherlock," he warned roughly.

"You're wasting time and blood." Sherlock told him, extending his left hand.

"Fuck," John snapped, and caught Sherlock's hand. He pulled hard, making Sherlock stagger, and licked once over the wound, his tongue cool and dry. Then he set his mouth over the cut and worked his tongue against Sherlock's skin. Sherlock leaned forward, one hand pressed to the concrete wall beside John's head, eyes falling shut as he shivered under sensation far too intense to come from such a small, insignificant touch.

Then John moved with the same breathtaking speed he'd shown back at the clinic, twisting to press Sherlock against the wall, his arm pinned against the concrete. John held him in place with one hand. With his other, he caught Sherlock's free hand and trapped it against the wall on his other side. The knife fell to the rubbish-littered floor. There was no hope that Sherlock could break free.

Not that he tried. His awareness had narrowed to the feel of John's tongue swiping over his skin, strong hands clenched tight around his wrists, the body pressed against his. John shifted closer, one foot kicking between Sherlock's, and pushed up against Sherlock's cock, half-hard and suddenly waking to new interest.

Sherlock arched away from the wall and against John's body, pressing his thigh up to find John fully hard. The fingers around Sherlock's wrists clenched even harder, grinding small bones together, as he pinned Sherlock back against the concrete, immobilising him.

When John started to move, it was with excruciating slowness, a torturous press of flesh and fabric writhing sinuously against Sherlock's cock and body, and if Sherlock's hands had been free, he would have torn off his own clothing to give John free access to whatever he wanted.

He was barely aware when John moved away from his forearm. John pressed his mouth to Sherlock's throat and planted a line of sharp nips along his pulse and up to his jaw. A brush of lips brought John to his mouth, and Sherlock groaned at a particularly hard thrust of John's body against his. John took advantage without hesitation, tongue warm and tasting only faintly of skin and not at all of blood, exploring Sherlock's mouth. It was less a kiss and more a possessive claim that Sherlock had no desire to fight, and soon the only thing keeping him upright was John's hold on his wrists and the leg trapped between his.

John pulled back from the kiss enough to bite Sherlock's lower lip, teeth closing on sensitive flesh as he ground hard against Sherlock's cock. Then he buried his face against Sherlock's throat and inhaled, drawing breath over Sherlock's skin like a caress. "Now, Sherlock," he ordered. "Show me that you're mine."

Sherlock didn't do this. He didn't _ever_ do this, not when he'd pushed the line and nearly overdosed or used a willing body to help him ride out the crash after coming down. Sex was methodical and as precise as he could make it, not this frenzied, clothed rutting beneath a car park stairwell, and he came with such force that he nearly lost control. His vision filled with fire, and he bit his own lip to keep from shouting with the intensity.

It took him a moment to find his balance. His feet skidded on the rubbish that had collected in the corner, and his skin crawled as he pushed away from the concrete. His pants were soaked, his trousers possibly ruined, but all he could think was to pull John close and kiss him, slow and lazy and indulgent, a kiss John returned with apparent pleasure.

Then Sherlock felt hardness against his thigh for just a moment, and he couldn't help but break the kiss to say, "You didn't finish."

"After. After I find the phylactery, I'm going to fuck you properly. Any objection?"

Sherlock swallowed, throat dry, and tried not to let John's blunt words distract him, but the battle was already lost. Had they been facing anything other than a lich, he would have convinced John to come home with him immediately and sent Mycroft a text to have the SAS deal with it. As it was, Sherlock's willpower was sorely tested by the effort it took to shake his head. "None at all," he promised.

John finally let go of Sherlock's wrists, leaving bones throbbing under bruises that were probably already turning purple. He gently took hold of Sherlock's bleeding arm and pressed hard against the wound. "This needs to be bandaged," he scolded. He guided Sherlock's free hand to the wound, instructing, "Put pressure here."

"It's... I'm fine," Sherlock said, still trying to find his breath and balance. He licked his lips, tasting the remnants of John's kiss. Already, he felt the bleeding begin to slow.

John bent down and picked up the fallen knife. He tugged the tails of his shirt out of his jeans and used the knife to cut two strip from the bottom. Then he snapped the blade back into the hilt and dropped the knife into Sherlock's coat pocket.

"Does it hurt?"

"No."

Gently, John moved Sherlock's bloody hand aside. He examined the wound before he folded up one of the cloth strips and pressed it over the wound, tying it in place with the second strip. "Right. As soon as we're done here, you're going to A&E. You need a tetanus shot and stitches."

"That isn't necessary," Sherlock protested.

"Which of us is the doctor?"

Sherlock signed. "Fine."

John stepped back, lifting a hand to touch Sherlock's cheek before brushing his fingers over Sherlock's lips. "Sherlock..." he said after a moment. "I'm sorry. Human blood doesn't normally affect me that way."

Sherlock's laugh was a bit shaky. He dug through his pockets to find a handkerchief, glad for once of the prissy habit he'd picked up from Mycroft. "What did I eat less than an hour ago?"

"The espresso — _Fuck,_" John said, his voice catching on a laugh. "Are you trying to kill me _again?_"

"Caffeine, sugar, and nicotine. It was the best I could do," he said, feeling oddly shy as he turned away to clean up as best he could. He didn't want to consider what other properties his blood might hold, at least regarding vampiric digestion and energy conversion. He could list its alchemical properties, but he'd never experimented with a vampire before, and suddenly realised he could have thought this all through a bit better.

"Nicotine?"

It took Sherlock a moment to recall the conversation. "Patches."

"Patches? Plural?"

Sherlock nodded. "Four," he said. He considered throwing the handkerchief down with the rest of the rubbish, but he couldn't take the chance. Any biological remnant could be used for spellwork. He folded the handkerchief as best he could before he stuck it into a pocket of his coat. After being in contact with the concrete wall, the coat needed to be dry cleaned anyway. Even though he lived in a flat that was chaotic with alchemical reagents, papers, and books, he was fastidious about personal hygiene.

"_Four_ nicotine patches." John caught him by the shoulder and turned him around, pushing at his sleeves to feel along his arms, up near his elbows. As he ripped off the two patches he found on Sherlock's forearms, he snapped, "You really are insane, aren't you? Are you trying to give yourself nicotine poisoning?"

"I can tolerate up to six, if necessary, without adverse effects."

"Not on my bloody watch, you can't." Finding no more patches on his arms, John rested a hand on his shirt, fingers touching the top button, and asked, "Do I need to strip you here? It won't be pleasant, but I _will_."

Sherlock shivered at the threat, torn between protesting and taunting John into doing just that. He settled for fumbling two shirt buttons open so he could peel off the patches on either side of his chest.

"Thank you. Now, show me where I can get into the tunnels. And no more patches. Give yourself a couple of days to flush the nicotine out your system. Understand?"

"I'm fine," Sherlock insisted, though without any real sharpness in his voice, because John took his hand and squeezed admonishingly as he led the way back out from under the staircase, and somehow the warmth of that touch soothed Sherlock's irritation.


	7. Chapter 7

**Monday, 15 February**

The twenty-four hour bedside clock glowed 0057 when the secure phone rang. Mycroft stared at the numbers as he reached for the handset. Calls past midnight on that line rarely brought good news; he hoped this time was an exception, though he knew it wasn't.

_The lich,_ he thought as he rolled onto his side and answered, "Holmes."

"Captain Watson contacted the pickup team four minutes ago, sir."

Mycroft silenced his sigh of relief. According to CCTV footage, John had entered the old underground railway tunnels just after ten yesterday morning. His mission had taken more than fourteen hours — a mission that should have taken no more than three, according to Mycroft's best analysts. After six hours, the pickup team leader had requested permission to stand down. Mycroft had refused, as he'd refused similar requests at nine and twelve hours.

Keeping the team ready was an irrational decision that even he would have difficulty defending to his budget oversight supervisor, but he knew he had made the right choice. He had looked into John Watson's eyes and seen the determination there, a strength buried deep under a layer of calm that would fool anyone else into thinking him weak-willed. He knew John would find a way to return.

"Send the location to my driver. I'll be ready to leave in ten minutes," he ordered before he rang off. He dressed quickly but with attention to detail — dark blue winter-weight wool that wouldn't show the rain he heard falling outside, a yellow tie, and a subtly striped white shirt. As he buttoned the waistcoat over his braces and tie, he looked at his reflection in the mirror. Neat and composed as always, even at one in the morning.

_'No one else knows what you're hiding inside, but I do,'_ John had said. Closing his eyes, Mycroft could perfectly recall the feel of John's fingers against his wrist, and he shivered at the memory of being the target of John's intense focus. His hunger.

_Control yourself,_ he scolded his reflection as he took a deep, steadying breath. Like Sherlock, he was prone to obsessive behaviours, but he had mastered that side of himself long ago. He needed to prioritise. The matter of the lich came before everything else, including the meetings scheduled for... He checked his watch. In just under seven hours, he was meant to be at Downing Street for an informal, off-the-record meeting with the PM, the High Druid, and the ranking Catholic bishop sent by the Pope to negotiate with Ireland's pagan practitioners.

Well, there was nothing for it. He'd have to reschedule. He used a wet comb to tame his hair and hooked his earpiece in place. As he left his bedroom, he called his primary assistant, feeling only the slightest pang of regret for waking her at this hour.

She answered after two rings, only the faintest hint of sleep in her voice: "Good morning, Mr. Holmes."

"Technically, yes. I need you to reschedule the Downing Street meeting. It's still moon-dark, so blame bad auspices."

"Yes, sir. Is there anything I should be aware of?" That was as close as she would get to asking his real reason for rescheduling.

Mycroft wouldn't discuss the lich even over a secure line, and John was nobody's concern but his own. So he said, "No. That will be all, thank you," and rang off. Then he headed downstairs to the foyer, where his night bodyguard was already waiting by the front door.

"Everyone is in place, sir. The ARC-HAZMAT team is onsite and has started decontamination and containment spells," he said.

Containment spells. That meant John had been successful at retrieving the Trinity Glass. Telling himself that was the only reason for the excitement twisting through his chest, Mycroft nodded. "Very good," he approved, and led the way to the car idling in the drive.

* * *

It was technically dawn, though the sun remained hidden behind the thick clouds that poured rain into the empty street beyond. Mycroft sipped a paper cup of strong black coffee and kept one eye on the emails forwarded to his mobile. Most of his attention, however, was focused on the garish yellow tent stretched between the SST — the Secure Spellwork Trailer, on loan from the Met — and the hazardous waste pickup tank that was collecting the runoff from the tent.

Two specialists emerged from the SST, struggling to carry a heavy lead box between them. The lid was sealed with gold foil stamped with Ministry of Defence anti-tamper holograms; the gold would stabilise the seal's magical protections. A third specialist followed, her thin face drawn with displeasure. She primly lifted her smart black robe to keep the hem out of the puddles and marched straight for Mycroft.

He straightened instinctively, folding both hands on the handle of his umbrella, and looked up at her. He'd worked with her for years, and he still loathed her habit of attempting to use her greater height to intimidate him. "Sathariel," he greeted politely, offering the barest nod.

"Holmes," she said in turn, her lyrical voice carrying gorgeous layers of contempt and grudging acceptance of his usefulness to the government they both served. She was an elf, one of the rare pureblood strains who could trace her roots back to the initial Ripple Event just three days after White Sands, when the first wave of wild magic had finally hit the British Isles.

"Is the artefact secured to your satisfaction?" he asked.

"As best can be done here," she said tightly. Almond-shaped eyes of deep violet glanced at the box her assistants — one half-elf, one human — were settling into the cargo compartment of a heavily armoured SUV under SAS guard. "It should be destroyed."

"And it will be, before the day is ended," he promised as diplomatically as he could. His irritation with her was fading, though, revealing a core of growing worry for John. "You must understand the importance of studying this — to better arm ourselves against a repeat of this incident."

"What 'study' will you be doing, then?" Sathariel asked brusquely. She tossed her head, throwing back the strands of silver hair that had come loose from the intricate braids at her temples.

"Object aura trace-scan, liquid scintillation, gamma —"

"Liquid scintillation requires a test sample."

Mycroft restrained the instinct to snap at the interruption. "Which will be destroyed, along with all test equipment, after we have the results."

She grunted, crossing her long arms over her thin chest. Her fingers tapped against her elbows like impatient spiders. "Psychometric or in-depth active spell analysis is too hazardous. The thing's a sink for light energy." Her eyes narrowed slightly, taking on a faint golden sheen over the deep violet irises. "I assume you have no _dark_ practitioners on staff."

"Certainly not," Mycroft lied smoothly. Elves tended to be superstitious, while Mycroft was far more pragmatic. Dark and light magic were two sides of the same coin, as the saying went, and any attempt to correlate them to good and evil was doomed to a very unscientific failure.

Movement at the decontamination tent saved him from further discussion. "If you'll excuse me," he said, and stepped around Sathariel just as John emerged from the zip-open doorway. He wore white coveralls and plastic flip-flops and looked self-conscious about it. The multiple decontamination showers had darkened his hair. Mycroft had no idea if it was a chemical reaction or simply because his hair was wet, but found himself hoping the sun-gold highlights would return as it dried.

John's nod of greeting was curt. His eyes darted warily around, tracking the movements of the technicians as though expecting them to attack him at any moment.

Mycroft abandoned his intent to speak with John onsite. "Come with me," he said, gesturing for John to walk back to the car beside him.

The sedan appeared luxuriously understated from the outside. Only a perceptive observer would note the unusual heaviness of the doors, the trim that was enchanted silver rather than chrome, and the glass that was resistant up to .50-calibre rounds. Under normal circumstances, John would have doubtless noted all of these things; now, he just climbed into the back seat, slumped against the cushions, and let his head roll back as he pressed his hands against his eyes.

"Next time you find a lich, just evacuate and nuke," he advised, voice slightly muffled by his palms.

When Mycroft slid in beside him and closed the back door, the rest of the world seemed to fall away. "I should debrief you," he said tentatively as he studied John's profile.

He should have ordered the car to take them back to headquarters so the debriefing could be recorded for later analysis. He even had safehouses throughout London and the surrounding area where he could offer John the illusion of comfortable privacy to encourage him to speak more freely.

Professionalism warred with his guilty desire to get John somewhere safe and help him forget whatever he'd experienced. He leaned forward and softly told his driver, "Home," before he sat back and engaged the privacy partition. John would need clothes, but more than that, he needed company. Mycroft could read the lines of stress at his eyes and mouth. The set of his shoulders screamed tension and wariness. The last thing he needed was to be alone, jumping at shadows.

John took a deep, audible breath, and the quality of his tension changed. He lowered his hands and turned slowly to look at Mycroft. It seemed to take him a moment to gather his composure enough to say, "Right. Okay."

"John —"

"It's fine," John interrupted, shifting slightly to face Mycroft. He closed his eyes, frowning in concentration, and said, "Sherlock chose the right tunnels, though how the hell he did, I've no idea. He couldn't have made it past the standard anti-intrusion spells — you know, the ones that keep you out of the London Underground service tunnels?"

Actually, Mycroft knew that Sherlock could and _had_ defeated virtually every commercial-grade anti-trespass spell available, but there was no reason to tell that to John. "You had no difficulty?"

John's smile was more like a grimace. He shifted again as the car's suspension groaned in protest at the speed hump at the car park exit. "The spells are meant to keep out the living. The pain in the — Ah, the tough part was finding the concealed door _out_ of the service tunnel. I was looking for traces of illusion."

"'Concealed' implies hidden through purely physical means."

"The whole damned tunnel's black with soot, oil, and whatever else. The bastard painted the door black. I went by it twice before finding it by smell." John took another breath, this time through his mouth, and his gaze flicked down to Mycroft's body almost too quickly to be noticed.

Mycroft was suddenly aware of the inches between them, the empty expanse of leather upholstery and air separating their legs and shoulders. He started to reach out, no more than a brief tensing of his forearm, before he stopped himself.

"I read the reports of the sensory acuity testing done after the EVS transplants," Mycroft said, fascinated by John's body language — or lack of body language. There was a stillness about him that was characteristic of the undead, but the illusion was shattered by the vitality in his eyes and the intensity of his stare.

John huffed out a brief laugh. "In that case, since you knew I'd be tasting the air down there, you owe me dinner. Or is it breakfast?"

"My calendar for the day is completely clear," Mycroft lied, without a care for how his assistants would frenzy if he told them to cancel all of his appointments. Mondays were nearly as hectic as Friday afternoons. He didn't feel a hint of guilt, though, as he told John, "I am entirely at your disposal."

"You _really_ shouldn't say that when I'm like this," John warned quietly. Then he glanced evasively away, adding, "I told Sherlock I'd... meet with him. I didn't expect to have my clothes confiscated. I can't exactly get on the Tube dressed like I work HAZMAT."

"Certainly not," Mycroft agreed, permitting himself a sly smile, happy to take full advantage of the admittedly flimsy excuse.

"Anyway, there were other defences — either this lich is also a necromancer or he's working with one." John closed his eyes again, brows drawing together in a frown. "Look, shouldn't I be reporting to someone... maybe someone who does field work?"

John's reticence wasn't based in contempt for Mycroft and his desk job, a common feeling for soldiers or agents who spent most of their time in the field. This felt protective, as though John wished to hide some unpleasant truth from Mycroft.

The analytical majority of Mycroft's brain seized on the thought of gaining new intelligence, especially about a creature as shrouded in mystery as a lich. He'd never heard of a lich working with anyone, and the thought of a necromancer-turned-lich was truly terrifying. But despite all that, he couldn't help but feel a small thrill of triumph at the thought that John wanted to _protect him_.

He brushed his fingertips over the back of John's cool hand. John didn't twitch in surprise — doubtless he'd heard the faint rustle of Mycroft's sleeve as he'd moved. John's eyes opened as he turned to face Mycroft, still frowning uncertainly.

"Tell me," Mycroft urged quietly. "We each protect queen and country in our own way, John. If I'm to properly do my job, I need to know."

John took another breath and leaned against the headrest once more, eyes fixed on the ceiling. "After the first layer of defences," he said softly, "the tunnel ended at a drop. Twenty, maybe thirty feet. No ladder, no handholds. Either the lich rappelled down or he levitated. I jumped."

A drop like that would break a human's bones, but even if John had suffered similar injury, his transplanted vampiric organs would have swiftly repaired the damage. That wasn't John's concern, though. He'd mentioned necromancy for a reason.

"The room below had animated guardians," John finally said.

"Do you know what subtype?" Mycroft asked, reviewing his memory of the different species of undead, from sentients such as vampires to mindless automatons and zombies. He glanced down and went still for a moment, realising he was tracing little circles on the back of John's hands in an unconscious attempt to offer comfort. Wondering what had compelled him to the uncharacteristic touch, he nearly pulled away. Then, deliberately, he resumed the soft, gentle touch, looking back up to study John's face.

John shook his head, damp hair sliding over the leather headrest. "It was dark — magically dark. Intact skeletons, some flesh, some hair..." He turned again, meeting Mycroft's gaze, and added, "The ceiling was barely four feet high, Mycroft. They were children. I don't... I don't think they were self-aware."

Two hundred years ago, grave robbing had been a cottage industry in London, fuelled by medical students and scientists in need of cadavers. After White Sands and the subsequent discovery of magical and alchemical properties of bodies, the industry had enjoyed a revival until international statutes had finally caught up. Mycroft knew he should ask if John had brought back any samples for DNA analysis so the bodies could be tracked, revealing the source. Families would be notified. The bodies would eventually be retrieved for reburial or cremation.

All this passed through Mycroft's head, heavy with the responsibility for public safety and his devotion to order, but he mentioned none of it. Instead, he pressed his hand down on John's, fingers curling tightly around, and said, "I'm so sorry you had to experience that."

John's nod was brusque and abrupt. "I neutralised them," he continued, his voice somewhat distant and businesslike, in sharp contrast to the way he twisted his hand around, gently lacing his fingers with Mycroft's. "Destroying the brain didn't interrupt the animation spells. I had to destroy the joints to keep the... pieces from following."

In Mycroft's years of service to the government, he'd dealt with many men and women, human and non-human alike, who could detach themselves emotionally from a situation. Some were sociopaths — true sociopaths and not merely anti-social geniuses like his brother. Others pushed their professionalism as far as they could, and later hid their experiences behind a shield of alcohol, drugs, or therapy.

Mycroft could hear the empathy in his voice. John was a soldier, true, but he was also a doctor, meant to save lives. Undeath was anathema to most doctors — which made his volunteering for the EVS program all the more curious, one more facet of John's surprisingly complex personality, a puzzle that Mycroft wanted to solve.

Platitudes would bring no comfort. Mycroft dismissed the meaningless words that he might offer to someone else. Instead, he moved across the bench seat, bridging the eight-inch gap between them, and reached out to gently touch John's face. While at the clinic, John had taken meticulous care with himself, showering and shaving each day. After his human body had shut down, his beard had stopped growing, leaving him with only a slight, rough stubble. Mycroft traced his fingers over the short hairs, down to the corner of John's mouth.

John pushed into the touch, his eyes never leaving Mycroft's. When he drew a breath, he shivered, hand tightening around Mycroft's, trapping his fingers. "Mycroft," he said quietly. Then he closed his eyes for a moment that was too long to be just a blink. "Mr. Holmes," he said more strongly.

"No," Mycroft said, voice soft but firm. "This isn't business, John. Your task is completed. You retrieved the Trinity Glass." He slid his hand back, stubble bristling roughly against his palm, until his fingers were buried in the damp, short hair at his nape. "Yesterday, I told you the time wasn't right. Now, though, it's only us," he added quietly, and pulled John into a kiss.

For one beautiful, timeless moment, John relaxed into the kiss, tension easing from his body. His lips were soft but cool, his mouth eager and welcoming. His fingers clenched around Mycroft's.

But then he drew away, the nape of his neck pressing back against Mycroft's palm. He glanced away, and Mycroft knew that the fragile connection between them was gone — only for now, he hoped.

"I can't," John whispered. He shifted away and slid back across the seat. "I'm sorry. I can't. Not now." He lifted his free hand and rubbed at his eyes.

"John —"

"Who's in charge of your hunting team?"

It was business, then, and not lack of pleasure. Mycroft hid his relieved sigh and asked, "To go after the lich?"

John nodded. "The intel I have — It's not useful for a high-level briefing. I'm sorry."

Mycroft nodded, understanding the pull of John's sense of duty. The corners of his mouth turned up in a small, sad smile. "Thank you. You remind me of the responsibility we both share." He leaned forward and activated the intercom to the driver's compartment. "Vauxhall Cross, please."

"When this is over..." John said hesitantly as Mycroft sat back. "When I'm back to normal..."

Mycroft looked down at their joined hands. "I'd like that."


	8. Chapter 8

**Wednesday, 17 February**

_"There is a world that exists just beyond the misty shores of America's eastern seaboard, an island where magic and nature live in nearly perfect balance. This world is Assateague Island, home to the two largest herds of wild unicorns in all the world._

_"The unicorns of Assateague Island have their roots in the wild horses and ponies who have thrived in this untouched wilderness for hundreds of years. Their origins are steeped in legend. Are they descended from the sturdy workhorses of the American colonists? Were their sires fierce and proud Spanish horses, survivors of a wrecked galleon? We may never know._

_"This is David Attenborough. Join me today on National Geographic's Our Magical Earth as I take you on an unprecedented journey into the lives of the Assateague Unicorns."_

John looked up from the laptop balanced on his knees, frowning at the insistent knock. Few people knew where he lived, and he was in no shape to see any of them. He tapped the touchpad, pausing the video, and moved the laptop to the bedside table as another knock sounded, this one more insistent and demanding.

With luck, it would be nothing more than his landlord coming to notify him of some trivial concern — visit from the exterminators, broken laundry machine, or the like. A part of him hoped it was Mycroft's pretty assistant, though he was absolutely _not_ going to see either Mycroft or Sherlock. Once this business with the lich was done, he'd be able to concentrate on whatever the hell was going on between him and them.

He still couldn't believe how he'd behaved, like some out-of-control teenager instead of a responsible adult. A _soldier_. First all but throwing himself at Sherlock on the way to a mission, and then forgetting every procedure he'd ever learned to paw at Mycroft in the back of a car.

Something had gone wrong with the transition to undeath. That was the only explanation. Maybe there was some hormone imbalance in his human systems, and the traces of it had lingered past the transition. The physiology of an EVS was still unfamiliar. No surprise; science was still discovering nuances of unmodified human biology after centuries of study. John could apply his medical training only so far, and he'd never studied the more arcane creatures beyond an understanding of basic emergency battlefield care.

He picked up the laptop and started the video again, ignoring whoever was at his door. Not that he actually cared about wild unicorns in America. He was bored to tears, tethered in his bedsit by the IV line returning fresh blood to his circulatory system. Just standing made him dizzy, and he really didn't need to pass out on the way to the door.

At least the cinematography was interesting, full of artistic shots of unicorns running in the surf along the island's beaches. Harry had loved unicorns, growing up. He considered emailing her a link to the video, but that would just open up the door for more communication, and the last thing he needed was to hear her crying about her quarter-elf ex and their disastrous breakup.

Abruptly, the door swung open. The laptop went flying as John snatched at the SIG in the drawer next to the bed, though even that motion made the room shift until he caught his balance. Over the sound of the narrator discussing the Maryland unicorn herd, Sherlock Holmes demanded, "Don't you answer your door?"

"Fucking hell," John snapped. His heart pounded, struggling to cope with the adrenaline flooding his taxed circulatory system. He sat back against the pillows and closed his eyes. His pulse pounded behind his eyes as a headache set in, his body's response to too-low blood pressure and sudden movement.

He heard the door slam shut, followed by footsteps crossing the cheap beige carpet. Then the IV line to the back of his right wrist twitched. "Why aren't you at my brother's clinic for this?" Sherlock asked coolly.

"Did you miss the fact that my door was _locked?_" John asked without opening his eyes, his heart still pounding, though for very different reasons now. He was in no shape to have Sherlock so close, just in arm's reach, a temptation that John couldn't permit himself to indulge.

"It's a cheap lock. You should replace it if you're going to keep a firearm." The mattress at John's right hip swayed and dipped under Sherlock's weight. "What's wrong? You're not blind — you were watching a video. Why are your eyes closed?"

"Because I have about three-quarters the proper volume of blood for an adult human, and your decision to _break into my room_ gave me a fucking headache."

A moment later, John flinched as fingertips touched his face. Too late, he braced against the expected shock that didn't come. Instead of the overwhelming heat and power of Sherlock's aura, John felt nothing more than a soothing, gentle warmth.

He sighed, relieved. Apparently, the effect of the Holmes brothers was minimised when he wasn't fully undead. He opened his mouth to tell Sherlock to go away just as the fingertips pressed, moving in slow, careful circles, tracing the shape of his skull.

"For how long have you been giving yourself blood?" Sherlock asked quietly.

"Mmm, day and a half?" John guessed. Monday afternoon, after he'd finally finished his debriefing, was something of a blur. Starving as a vampire wasn't quite as painful as it was for a human, but it was far from pleasant. "Got the IV in Monday night."

Sherlock's huff sounded profoundly annoyed. "No wonder why you have a headache. There are ways to safely speed up the process."

John risked cracking an eye open. When the pain didn't increase, he opened his other eye to properly glare at Sherlock. "You're a physician now?" he asked, though the sharp edge in his voice was softened by the look in Sherlock's pale blue eyes.

"An alchemist," Sherlock corrected. "You're the physician. Redundant knowledge wouldn't be of any use to either of us."

"Makes sense," John agreed with a soft laugh. He reached out with his left hand to tug the laptop close. Sherlock dropped his hands to help, and John quickly said, "Don't stop. You have no idea how good that feels. I can't metabolise painkillers properly at the moment."

Sherlock did as requested. As soon as John closed the laptop, Sherlock gently pushed him back into the pillows. "You should have come to me before starting this. I have nothing here that can help you."

With a guilty flinch, John said, "About that... Sunday, I mean. After everything that happened, I needed... time."

"Time," Sherlock repeated, studying John's face with such intensity that he felt trapped.

Refusing to close his eyes and hide, John nodded. Sherlock's fingers shifted with the motion, trailing back into John's hair. "What happened between us... It's not that I didn't _want_ to..."

Sherlock's hands stilled.

"No," John said quickly. He sat up too fast and winced, but rested his hand on Sherlock's leg to hold him in place. He nodded to indicate the IV of lactated Ringer's and whole blood. Both were enhanced with basic arcane stabilisers that would encourage his circulatory system to work properly, but the process was slow. At least he was past the six hours of debilitating arrhythmia that hit when his heart had resumed beating. "After I was back to myself, I was going to come find you."

The tension in Sherlock's hands eased, and he went back to combing his fingers through John's hair. "You didn't have to wait."

John shook his head, careful not to move too fast. "Yes, actually, I did. I don't know what came over me, but... Look, the way I was acting around you" — _and Mycroft,_ John thought with another pang of guilt — "that's not how I am."

Sherlock sat back, glancing down at the IV catheter, gaze following the tubing up to the bags hanging on the stand beside the bed. Then he rose so abruptly that the bed shook, shifting the corner of John's laptop to bang painfully into his knee.

"If you stopped the treatment now, what would happen?"

"Nothing pleasant," John said apprehensively. His human systems, though in terrible shape, were mostly alive and mostly functioning, with the help of vampiric regeneration. He'd gone far enough that stopping now meant experiencing death all over again, this time without the aid of a shaman to keep him from suffering through every second of it.

Sherlock huffed, irritated. "And you're in no condition to walk. You can barely sit up. Fine." He turned on his heel and went right for the door, pausing at John's desk. The surface was bare except for John's keys, returned to him by the decontamination team once they'd been checked for residual Trinity radiation, and his dusty coffee mug. Sherlock swept up the keys in one hand.

"Oi! What do you think you're doing?" John demanded.

"Would you rather I locked your door with picks? This is more convenient," Sherlock said, twirling the keys around his finger before trapping them against his palm. "I'll be back in two hours."

John stared after him until he'd disappeared and closed the door. A moment later, the deadbolt engaged.

He fumbled the laptop back across his legs and looked at the paused screen, showing an artistic, blurry shot of two white unicorns standing under a winter-bare tree. He was tempted to email someone, but he had no idea who. Mycroft? Mike Stamford? And really, what would he say? After a minute, he decided that Sherlock was trying to be helpful. As an alchemist, he might even succeed.

Leaning back into the pillows, he restarted the video. If nothing else, Sherlock would hopefully be back in time to save John from the next queued episode: _Mermaids: Myth or Mystery?_

* * *

Twenty extra quid to the taxi driver got Sherlock back to John's bedsit six minutes early, even after a quick stop at a takeaway sandwich shop around the corner from his garret. It occurred to Sherlock that John might baulk at some of the chemicals in the compounds he'd prepared. Subterfuge was clearly the only way he'd be able to prove his skill to John, and sweet coffee offered the perfect solution to part of the problem, at least.

Sherlock took ninety seconds to add seven carefully measured drops of clear, sharp-smelling liquid to one of the coffee cups. He gave the contents a quick stir, touched the spoon to his tongue, and then dumped in two packets of sugar and creamer to mask the taste. From his time observing John at the clinic, Sherlock had learned that John's taste in coffee varied. He rarely preferred sugar, but this time, Sherlock hoped he'd accept it. Otherwise, Sherlock would have a much more difficult time dosing a sandwich.

That took care of the cardiac stimulant. The rest of his alchemical supplements were basic required minerals that John would see the logic in taking knowingly. Sherlock tossed the spoon and empty sugar and creamer packets down the hall to get rid of the evidence. Then he pressed the lid back onto the coffee cup and let himself into John's room.

"Just in time," John said, over the sound of neo-classical music, too heavy on flutes and violins, too light on deeper notes.

"Nature programs never have decent composers," Sherlock told him as he kicked the door closed. He brought the cardboard tray to the bed, glancing critically at John and the IV setup. The drip was extremely slow to avoid overwhelming his system, but Sherlock estimated an efficiency increase of at least forty percent, once the stimulants reached John's heart.

"Usually good videography, though," John said after a moment. He closed the laptop and set it down on the bed. Sherlock promptly picked it up, unplugged it, and moved it to the desk instead.

"You can't live on energy bars and water. That coffee's yours," Sherlock said, pointing to the dosed cup as he put the laptop down. He swung the chair away from the desk and set it at the bedside. "I brought sandwiches."

"Thanks." John gave him a slightly puzzled look before he smiled. The expression transformed his tired, drawn face, bringing light to his eyes. "So, you went to school for diagnostic alchemy? Bio-alchemy?"

"Specialization is for insects. I studied whatever might be useful in my work," Sherlock told him. He tossed his scarf and coat onto the foot of the bed before he sat.

"So, what did you study?" Carefully, John worked his coffee cup out of the tray, steadying Sherlock's cup. Sherlock watched critically for any sign of tremors or weakness. Other than being a bit over-cautious about spilling the hot coffee, John seemed fine.

John took a sip through the lid and wrinkled his nose, glancing at Sherlock's coffee cup as though about to ask if they could switch. Too late, Sherlock realised he'd forgot to add sugar and milk to his own coffee — he'd been too caught up in fixing John's — but he picked it up anyway and took a sip, forcing a smile. He loathed black coffee unless it was accompanied by a sweet dessert.

"Biology, then? Biomedicine?" John asked. He took another sip before he set the cup down on the bedside table. He unwrapped one of the two sandwiches on the tray and raised a brow at the inch-thick layer of sliced roast beef.

"Biology, psychiatry, forensic alchemy — whatever caught my interest. Primarily chemistry and alchemy. I have no use for a meaningless paper degree, so I saw no reason to clutter up my mind with worthless courses on sociology, modern literature, and the like," he admitted, busying himself by taking vials and envelopes out of his pockets. John's opinion shouldn't have mattered to him, but it did — enough that it hurt to imagine seeing his scorn at Sherlock's haphazard education.

John's laugh surprised him. "If I could get back a tenth of the time I spent in courses that meant nothing but ticking off a box on a requirements form... I'm all for a basic classical education, but there's no need to cram it down a student's throat — especially not with all the stress of biomedicine, in my case."

"But you're a doctor," Sherlock said, pleasantly surprised. He'd expected John to be all for the pointlessly rigorous hoops universities its graduates to navigate. "You're published."

"What? How do you know?"

"Published twice, actually, only one of them co-written, both on emergency medicine."

John grinned, openly pleased. "You looked? Or is this from some background check Mycroft ran?" he asked, his smile fading.

"Mycroft doesn't share information unless it suits his purposes." Sherlock slouched back in the uncomfortable chair, bracing a foot on the box spring. "Of course you're published, though few others on your unusual career path would've taken the time."

"Hang on a tick. What do you know of my 'career path'?" John demanded.

"I know the university system and what you went through to get your degree. I can only imagine how much worse it was in the military. You were thirty-four when you volunteered for the EVS program. Already a captain as well as a doctor. You're an overachiever. You function well in a structured environment, but need the authority to take control within that environment, and you're willing to put up with frankly idiotic requirements to get that authority."

John stared at him, sandwich forgotten in his left hand. After a dazed blink, he quietly said, "Dead on."

"It's obvious in your career, your clothes, even living here by your choice, rather than the barracks, even though you could save a bit of money there." Sherlock nodded to the coffee cup on the bedside table. "Drink your coffee. It'll help with mineral absorption."

"Mineral absorption?" He reached for the coffee with his right hand, moving the IV tubing taped to his right hand out of the way.

Sherlock nodded to the vials and paper envelopes. "Copper to balance your circulatory system, as well as phosphorous, sulphate salt, and magnesium."

John relaxed back against his pillows. He took a drink of the coffee, frowning thoughtfully. "I know it's been a while since Basic Alchemical Studies, but aren't the components supposed to be a bit more... toxic? Or at least squishy?"

"Reagents," Sherlock corrected with an amused huff. "And you're one to complain about 'squishy', specialising in emergency medicine."

"I knew I wanted to go into the army. I figured being able to handle battlefield trauma made more sense than, I don't know, plastic surgery or something." John's expression turned distant and thoughtful as he worked through another few bites of the sandwich. Then he put the sandwich down and touched Sherlock's left wrist. "Let me see your arm."

Sherlock hesitated, remembering the deep cut he'd made just two days ago. "It's fine," he answered, though he didn't pull his arm away from John's fingers.

"How many stitches?"

"None." Sherlock turned to meet John's eyes. "I'm an alchemist. I'm perfectly capable of repairing a cut."

John stared at him, dark blue eyes studying his face so intently that Sherlock would've suspected telepathy if he hadn't seen John's medical profile. Finally, John let his hand fall away and took a drink of his coffee, holding the cup with both hands.

Relieved, Sherlock turned his attention to the supplies he'd brought. Like all alchemists, he kept a ready supply of basic reagents on hand, but his needs tended more towards forensic alchemy and less towards medicinal. Now that he was aware John lived without proper alchemical support, Sherlock would be prepared. Six hours in the alchemy lab at Barts would be enough to prepare a solid foundation.

John interrupted his thoughts, tentatively saying, "So... I don't mean to be personal here, but What's your WS-rating? You and your brother, I mean."

Coming from John, the question was unexpected, but Sherlock had been hiding that answer for years. "We were never tested," he said smoothly.

John's brows shot up. He took a sip of the coffee, saying, "Really? Most parents have their children tested as soon as they hit puberty."

"It's not a legal requirement," Sherlock pointed out.

"What if you'd wanted a career in arcane sciences?"

Sherlock smirked. "Do you think a low WS-rating would stop me?"

John rolled his eyes and laughed. "I suppose not," he admitted, taking another drink of the coffee. "Did you do any work with the EVS program?"

"Why all the interest in my professional background?"

"You're proposing I let you treat a condition that I have under control," John countered. "Have you worked with any other EVS volunteers?"

"Other than the soldiers on guard at the clinic?" Sherlock asked, an edge of annoyance cutting into his tone.

John studied his expression for a moment. "You had more than a week to get to know them."

"They were dull," Sherlock said without thinking, though the words made him frown at the memory. _Why_ were they dull, but John wasn't? What made John so special?

"They saved my life," John pointed out. "More times than I can count."

Sherlock huffed, irritated. Perhaps he owed them some small consideration for that. Already, John had become... _important_ to him. Wearing a sand-coloured T-shirt and his awful grey tracksuit bottoms, still bearing a trace of mud on one knee, John should have looked washed-out and dim. Instead, he looked beautiful to Sherlock, a subtle predator in camouflage, patient and deadly, with only the deep blue of his eyes and the cool depth of his aura to betray his inner nature.

He voiced none of these thoughts, instead saying, "Drink your coffee."

Frowning, John did as he'd been told, his gaze flicking distantly along the foot of the bed, sliding over the lines of Sherlock's wool coat. Sherlock watched him, reading his body language easily, now that he was alive once more.

Then his thoughts slotted into a new configuration that fit with everything John was communicating, both spoken and unspoken. "You think I want you only because you're an EVS."

"Do you?" John countered brusquely.

Sherlock looked at John, seeing not just the challenge but the uncertainty buried beneath. "No," was all he said before he turned back to his reagents.

Forty seconds passed before Sherlock's self-control stretched thin and broke. "Whatever you want to say, say it. This dancing around is tedious, not entertaining. Not when there are better things we could be doing."

John gave him a startled, wide-eyed blink. "Are there?"

"Aren't there?" Sherlock challenged, switching the coffee to his other hand so he could touch John's leg.

Sherlock guessed John didn't have enough blood in his system to raise a proper flush in his cheeks. He did look down, sun-touched lashes hiding his pupillary response, but the embarrassed way he shifted position was telling. A glance down, however, told Sherlock that John's body and mind weren't in accord at the moment. Not enough blood in his system for that, either.

"John," he said then, remembering the fierce, desperate encounter in the car park stairwell. "How were you able to sustain an erection before?"

John choked on his bite of sandwich. "Sherlock!"

"There was no time to discuss it on Monday," he said reasonably. "You didn't have a heartbeat. That means blood couldn't have —"

"Yes, thank you. I went to medical school. I know how it works," John said tensely, avoiding Sherlock's eyes. He swallowed more coffee and took a breath before saying, in the tones of a bored lecturer, "Vampire physiology allows for generally normal sexual arousal. It's thought to be related to feeding — a parasitic adaptation, offering pleasure in exchange for blood."

"I know that. Vampires can control it, though, consciously. Can you?"

John closed his eyes tightly, hiding behind the coffee cup as he drank. Sherlock estimated he was halfway through the contents. "No. I'm still essentially human, Sherlock."

Satisfied, Sherlock nodded. "Genuine arousal, then. You wanted me. You still do."

"Nice to see your ego's working in top form," John muttered, though he couldn't hide the smile that tugged at his mouth. "I take it you... feel the same? Still?"

Relief swept through Sherlock, irrational but still there. John wanted him as much as he wanted John. Whatever brief, anomalous attraction John might have felt towards Mycroft, Sherlock could write it off as an unfortunate symptom of the trauma John had suffered by dying.

"Of course I do," Sherlock told him. "Otherwise, I wouldn't be here."


	9. Chapter 9

**Wednesday, 17 February**

By the time John needed to change out his IV bags, the world had gone distant and fuzzy. He shifted to the edge of the bed with a crinkle of paper that puzzled him until he remembered the sandwich. "Thanks for lunch," he told Sherlock as he brushed the paper aside, sending it bouncing over the disarrayed blankets.

Beautiful silver-blue eyes met John's with a puzzled blink. "Where are you going?" Sherlock asked as John swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up.

He gestured at the IV with his right hand. "Need to change this out."

"You shouldn't stand." Sherlock left off playing with the vials and envelopes he'd arranged on the bedside table. He caught John by the shoulders, holding him in place.

At some point, Sherlock had removed his suit jacket. His shirt was an eye-catching, iridescent purple. John touched the sleeve, feeling the warm fibres with his fingertips before he shifted closer, burying his nose in the fabric. He breathed deep, letting the warmth of Sherlock's body and aura slip gently through him.

Sherlock's hand tightened on John's shoulder, though he didn't move away. "John —"

"It's not just because of the vampire senses," John said. Sherlock's sleeve trapped the words as John pressed a kiss against taut muscle trapped under soft fabric. "That's good."

"Your IV —" Sherlock began hesitantly. Then, in a puzzled voice, he asked, "Your vampire senses? What about them?"

"Both of you," John explained, watching the shift in light and colours as he stroked his fingers along Sherlock's sleeve. Then, because he needed the contrast, he pushed Sherlock's sleeve up as far as it would go, baring one slender, sharp-boned wrist before the tight fabric caught. Impatiently, John took hold of the button and gave a sharp twist, snapping the threads. The cuff fell open, allowing John to push the fabric up over the curve of Sherlock's forearm.

Then he exhaled softly, fascinated by the veins under pale skin. Instead of the blue of oxygen-depleted blood, they were deep scarlet and gold and orange, like rivers of liquid fire, spreading in a web beneath Sherlock's skin. John didn't hesitate to press his fingers over the vein, feeling the pulse of Sherlock's heart, rapid and strong.

"Is it even a vein? An artery carries blood from the heart, but what carries fire?" he asked, voicing the thoughts swirling around in the back of his head.

"Fire?" Sherlock asked sharply, pulling his hand back.

John snatched at his wrist. The IV catheter taped into John's right hand stung as the quick motion shifted it under his skin. With an irritated little huff, he jerked it free; almost immediately, his skin began to close over the tiny wound.

"Here," John said, running his left thumb over the deep channel of flames. When he reached the crook of Sherlock's elbow, he pushed the sleeve up another couple of inches until the tightly bunched fabric finally caught on itself. "It's... it's everywhere," he said, growing worried.

He closed his eyes, trying to remember what had fire for blood, but the answer didn't come. There were salamanders, of course, and he'd heard rumour of elemental fire spirits that lived somewhere deep under the ocean, which made no sense. Why would fire live far under the water?

But Sherlock wasn't a salamander. He was human, and he shouldn't have fire under his skin.

Sherlock was fighting him now, trying to catch hold of his hands, his voice a sharp, distant baritone. John ignored it all as he pulled Sherlock down beside him, trying to remember what he'd learned about offensive spells and alchemical poisons. There was no physiological reason for Sherlock to have fire for blood, so it had to be something arcane. Not John's specialty, but he knew how to keep Sherlock alive until he could get expert help from... someone. Mycroft, maybe. He had a whole clinic buried under London.

"John! John, stop," Sherlock insisted as he continued to resist, batting John's hands away. "I'm perfectly healthy. Whatever you're seeing, it isn't real."

"You're _on fire,_ you idiot," John scolded, still staring at the glow under Sherlock's skin, pulsing from deep red to brilliant gold. "Oh, hell. Your heart," he whispered, and went for the buttons holding the tight fabric closed over Sherlock's chest.

Sherlock was strong and fast, but John wasn't human. Buttons flew as he took the expedient route and ripped the shirt open, hands fisted just under the collar. Then he gasped; the flames were everywhere, radiating out like a spider's web from Sherlock's heart, which was so bright it was nearly painful to look at.

John faltered, touching his fingertips over the fire. There was _nothing_ he could do about this — nothing anyone could do, not the finest arcano-medical professionals in the world. He couldn't feel any heat beyond what would be normal for a human, though, and Sherlock was still breathing. With every beat, the colour of his heart's fire changed, like fireworks in slow motion, blossoming gold under his skin before fading back to crimson.

"Doesn't it hurt?" he asked, tearing his eyes away to look up at Sherlock's face, braced against the expected expression of agony.

Sherlock just rolled his beautiful silver-blue eyes. "Whatever you're seeing, it's not real."

"Of course it's bloody real!" John snapped. "You're _on fire_. What the hell else is it?"

In answer, Sherlock reached out for the bedside table, the blazing veins in his arm shifting with the motion. "John. John, I want you to watch," he said, touching John's face. Even his fingertips were glowing softly now, and the blood vessels along the back of his hand wove around his bones in a way that wasn't right. Blood vessels didn't do that.

John pushed at the back of Sherlock's hand where the skin bulged over a vein. The soft strobing effect of flame was still there, tracking the vein but not _in_ it. He let go and the flame settled back into the vein, only to shift sideways again at John's next push.

"John," Sherlock snapped, interrupting his experimenting. John heard a spinning, grinding sound, followed by the whoosh-and-click of a cigarette lighter. Baffled, he looked at the perfectly normal flame trapped above Sherlock's fingers, wrapped around a silver Zippo that Sherlock brought close to his own hand.

"What —"

"Let me," Sherlock insisted. "You don't know what you're seeing."

"I'm seeing an idiot who's about to burn himself," John said, rather proud of how reasonable he sounded.

"You said I'm on fire already."

John glanced back at Sherlock's chest. The fire there was _everywhere,_ a network of channels distributing liquid flame around his lungs and ribs and down into his abdomen.

"Watch, John," Sherlock said calmly, moving the lighter under his own hand, which John still held.

_Now_ John felt heat, and jerked his hand away. Fire was the only thing that could quickly and efficiently kill an EVS, just as it could a vampire. Flame and charring blocked regeneration, and though he wasn't irrationally afraid of fire, as some full vampires were, he had a healthy respect for the potential damage it could do.

His muscles bunched and tensed as he prepared to snatch the lighter away, only... nothing was happening. Sherlock's hand was a bare half inch above the metal guard surrounding the wick. The flame licked at his palm, spreading across, and Sherlock's fingers weren't even twitching.

Slowly, Sherlock turned his hand over, allowing the flame to play across the back of his hand with no visible effect as he showed John his palm.

No burn. No blister. Not even reddening of the skin, except for where the fire pulsed underneath.

"See?" Sherlock said calmly as he snapped the lighter closed.

John snatched at his hand, running his fingers over unharmed skin. The fire's heat was almost painful to touch, trapped by Sherlock's perfectly healthy cells. "How?"

"You're hallucinating."

"I am not!"

Sherlock huffed out a little laugh. "Then _you_ explain, Doctor."

"You're..." John began, before he faltered. "You're cursed. Malicious spell."

"What are the effects of datura ingestion?"

"I'm not letting you give me a bloody quiz while you're sitting here _on fire,_" John protested.

"I gave you datura. Seven drops of tincture of datura. What are the effects?"

John closed his eyes, dredging through his memory. "Cardiac and heart-chakra stimulation, vision difficulty, loss of memory, strengthens the defence against illusion and camouflage spells?"

"And hallucinations — auditory, visual, and tactile."

"You're still on fire," John insisted, reaching out to flatten his hands on Sherlock's chest. "It's... pretty."

Sherlock laughed quietly. "And you're not going to remember any of this. Now lie back down. You ripped out your IV."

"Oh," John breathed, looking up at Sherlock hopefully. "I wouldn't need it — not right now, anyway — if I could have a bit of your blood. I've never tasted fire before."

To John's delight, Sherlock leaned down and kissed him, lips warm and soft and perfectly normal, despite the traces of flame radiating beneath his skin. "You wouldn't remember it if I said yes. Ask me again tomorrow."

"You idiot," John said with a laugh, pulling back just enough to look into Sherlock's eyes. Up close, the fire was even there, fine tendrils through the whites coalescing into blazing red-gold beneath the cool blue irises. "How am I going to remember to ask you if I'm not going to remember?" he asked, before he could think about what he'd said. The question didn't make sense — did it?

"I'll remind you. Lie down."

"Promise?"

Sherlock gave him one more kiss before pushing him back into the pillows. "I promise."

* * *

John awoke slowly, eased into consciousness by fingers pressing long, soft lines against his chest, following the path of his muscles. His whole body felt heavy and relaxed, but it wasn't the artificial relaxation of weakness and anaemia. He felt strong — perhaps not strong enough to rush into a rugby game, but stronger than he'd felt for days.

He opened his eyes and stared at Sherlock, whose attention was focused on massaging thick oil along the intercostal muscles between John's ribs. Purple shirt torn open at the chest, sleeves rolled up over his elbows, hair mussed.

"If we had sex and I wasn't conscious for it, I'll never forgive you for not waking me up first," John warned.

Sherlock's head snapped up. He blinked as though surprised to hear John speak. "You're conscious."

"_Now_ I am. Doesn't count," John said, pushing up cautiously onto his elbows. "What happened to you?"

"You... had a strong reaction to the tincture I gave you," Sherlock said evasively, looking back down at what he was doing. The oil coating John's chest and abdomen was clear but sparkled strangely. "It was meant to stimulate your heart. You shouldn't even be awake for hours yet."

"I feel fine now. What is this?" John asked, shifting to catch a bit of the oil on his finger.

"Mineral salts in kelpie ambergris."

"Kelpie — Ugh." John wiped his finger on the bedspread and dropped back onto his pillow. "This just became significantly less arousing."

Sherlock laughed. "We'll do _that_ when you're feeling healthier. I had to restart your IV."

"What? Why?"

"You tore it out." Sherlock grinned at him, silver-blue eyes bright. "Along with all but three of the buttons on my shirt."

"Oh, fuck." John dropped his right forearm over his eyes, clenching his left hand, feeling the IV catheter shift slightly. "I'm sorry. I didn't... I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"It was fascinating, actually. You... you have a very unique mind."

John couldn't hide his flinch. Sexual assault would have been bad, but that didn't mean reliving some of his worst drunken moments was any better. Three days before going in for the EVS transplant surgery, he and his section had gone on a pub crawl that was still a thing of legend, and that was only with them remembering about half of it.

"It's fine," Sherlock assured him, moving a bit lower down John's ribs. "You should rest more. Give the minerals a chance to absorb."

"Tell me," John insisted.

Sherlock sighed. "You thought you saw things. The usual sort of things one would expect from a soldier recently back from the desert: spiders, wyverns, that sort of thing."

"And I ripped off your shirt... to what? Kill a spider?"

Sherlock's hands moved away from John's ribs. He took hold of John's right wrist, fingers slick and smooth, and lifted so he could meet John's eyes. "Do you still want me, or was it only the datura?"

"Of course — _Datura?_" John demanded, sitting up again. He ignored the painful twinge as he yanked on his IV line. "You gave me datura? Are you bloody _insane?_"

"It's a cardiac stimulant. You needed to increase the efficiency of your transfusion. Or did you enjoy being too weak to hold up a cup of tea?" Sherlock challenged, immediately going on the defence.

"That's a poison. No wonder why I was hallucinating."

"And you're an EVS. I couldn't kill you if I drowned you in arsenic. Now lie back down," Sherlock said petulantly.

"Just because most things can't kill me doesn't give you the right to go experimenting on me."

"_Helping_ you," Sherlock corrected.

John bit back a retort only because he _did_ feel better. He looked at the bedside clock, half-obscured by vials and a small crucible with a candle underneath. "It's still Wednesday?"

"Wednesday night."

John took a deep breath and nodded, allowing Sherlock to push him back down onto the bed. "You brought lunch. I'll get dinner," he offered, remembering the sandwich. He felt as though he should be angrier over being drugged — and by datura, of all things! — but Sherlock, damn the man, had been right. John did feel better.

"I'm not hungry."

"Obviously. I mean, look at you," John said, doing just that, and taking his time at it. All too clearly, he could count the faint outline of Sherlock's ribs below the sharp thrust of his collarbones. "Which of your parents was a wraith?"

Sherlock went tense.

"I don't — I'm not bigoted," John said with an exasperated sigh. "It's not like I care if you're half-human or all-human. Whatever you are, you're unhealthily thin, that's all."

After a moment, Sherlock looked back down at John's chest. He went back to rubbing the oil into his skin. "Our parents don't have a mixed marriage. It wouldn't have even been legal when they were married."

Mixed-species marriage had been legalised in some countries only over the last ten years. Most of the world was still battling over the issue. John sighed again, this time angry with himself, and said, "Sorry. Unless they're _both_ wraiths. Though that doesn't explain Mycroft."

Sherlock's expression cracked, lips twitching. "Changeling baby," he said, gaze flicking up to meet John's.

John snorted a laugh. Changelings were still mythical, at least as far as science was concerned, though the more fringe elements among cryptozoologists were still holding out hope. Scientific fact didn't stop most children from trying to convince their siblings that they were changelings, as John knew all too well.

"You're thinking something," Sherlock accused.

"I'm breathing, too."

"Most people are too stupid to do both at the same time."

John laughed and settled more comfortably against the pillows. "So, did Mycroft convince you that you were the changeling in the family?"

"As if he'd succeed." Sherlock reached over to the bedside table and picked up a large dropper. "You have a sibling. Did he?"

"She. And yes, she did," John said, turning his head to watch as Sherlock filled the dropper with a slick-looking iridescent oil from the little crucible. "It worked, too."

"I'm disappointed in you," Sherlock scolded, measuring individual drops into a glass vial.

John grinned. "Don't see why. I went right to my parents."

"Tell-tale? You?"

"Not at all. I thanked them for taking care of me as long as they had and told them I should probably go. Asked for bus fare so I could get to London to find my real parents."

Sherlock glanced at him, brows raised in surprise. "How old were you?"

"Maybe five?" John grinned. "Harry was grounded for the next month after they got it all sorted out." Sherlock laughed and turned his attention back to the vial. John rolled over onto his side, arranging the IV tubing so he wouldn't tug on it. "What was it like, growing up with Mycroft?"

"Tedious. He was perfect in demeanour, always able to twist people to his will. I was better with science and alchemy. Probably the only thing that kept our parents from shipping me off to boarding school. Our parents are physicists."

"Physics?" John asked, surprised. "How'd you end up an alchemist, then?"

"Forensic alchemy is useful and a perfect match for my background in chemistry." Sherlock's grin reappeared as he picked up an envelope and a ring of very tiny graduated measuring spoons. "And it's more fun." He chose one of the spoons and dipped it into the envelope, removing a minuscule amount of black powder.

"What's that?"

"Powdered black pepper. It's an alternate source of copper. It also reduces the need for heat in certain compounds, since I'm working in the Dark Ages," he added wryly, nodding at the candle burning below the crucible. "This would be better with a proper furnace."

John frowned, inching closer to watch. "The only thing I remember using black pepper for was to make cafeteria food edible."

"Because your basic alchemy professor was probably an —"

"An idiot?" John guessed.

Sherlock looked at him, brows raised in momentary surprise before his expression shuttered. He seemed to brace himself as though expecting an attack. "Yes," he said stiffly, picking up the glass vial to swirl the pepper into the liquid. "Roll over onto your stomach."

John looked down at his chest and wrinkled his nose. He'd have to shower for a week to get the thick oil off — he refused to think about precisely how kelpie ambergris was harvested. The blanket was already ruined, though, with a John-shaped, oily outline showing where the ambergris had run down his sides.

With a faint sigh, he twisted, untangling the IV line, and tugged a fold of the blanket over his pillow before he laid down. "You're right, you know," he began, before Sherlock's clever, talented fingers slicked down his back, drawing the last syllable out into a moan. Tight muscles began to unspool under the gentle pressure.

"I'm always right," Sherlock said with such absolute seriousness that John had to bite back a laugh. "About what?"

Grinning into the blanket, John said, "My alchemy professor. He _was_ an idiot."


End file.
